Immutamus
by Neverland Regular
Summary: Feelings change, people change, and how you feel about people changes. Always in motion, and with dire consequences. A/A post-movie, with alternate movie ending.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note: Here we go! This is my first proper attempt at a multi-chapter Inception fanfiction. Hang on folks, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.**_

* * *

_A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes_  
_I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it's left me blind._

_I took the stars from our eyes, and then I made a map,_  
_And knew that somehow I could find my way back._  
_Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too_  
_So I stayed in the darkness with you. ~ Cosmic Love, Florence and the Machine_

* * *

No. No, something was definitely strange. Ariadne hadn't been home in years; she hated this house. That's why she'd left, gone to Paris, gone away. She looked up at the building, letting the corners of her mouth curl downwards in distaste.

_Fischer._

She blinked, rubbing her forehead in preparation for the on-coming headache. What was it she was supposed to be doing? There was something. Right on the edge of her mind, the tip of her tongue, just out of sight.

_Cobb._

She winced; keeping one hand on her forehead and picking up her suitcase in the other, before starting to climb the steps leading up to the front porch. A gentle wind played with the ends of her hair; the garden was littered with yellow and orange leaves – it had always been her job to rake them. Her mother obviously hadn't hired a gardener. Couldn't afford one.

_Don't lose yourself._

The door swung open easily when she nudged it with her elbow; the hallway was empty. She glanced at the picture of her and her mother on the wall, the one she'd always hated because their smiles are so fake they could've been painted on. Ariadne took it down, peering more closely at the black and white faces. It was obvious that she'd been on the verge of tears despite her grin; she remembered having the photo taken.

"_Ariadne! Stop it, stop it – you hear me? You need to smile, okay? To show daddy how happy we are. So smile for me - __**smile**__."  
_

She gulped, a lump rising in her throat as she hung the picture back on the wall. It was at an angle, but she didn't care, turning her attention to the open doorway at the end of the corridor. She could see the edge of the kitchen table, the refrigerator, the oven. Her mother's back.

"M-mom?" Her voice croaked, so she spoke again, louder to compensate for the tremble. "Hey, mom, it's me. Mom?"

The woman at the table sat up, turned in her chair to stare at her daughter with dark, haunted eyes that looked like they hadn't been so alight with hope in years.

"Ariadne?" She got up, her chair clattering backwards and on to the linoleum floor. "Ariadne…you came back. Baby, you came back."

Ariadne couldn't move; she stood stock still as her mother ran at her, pulling her in to a one-sided embrace that smelt of gin and tonic.

_Arthur._

* * *

One week.

Two weeks.

A month.

Two months.

Three.

* * *

Home was what was best for her in this state. Ariadne had spent hours, hours upon hours, staring at the ceiling of her bedroom and trying to remember what it was that she'd misplaced somewhere in her mind. She pottered around without really being there, settling in to a routine of being nudged along by her mother who didn't notice anything being wrong with the world apart from when she ran out of drink.

She couldn't get it. By then she'd given up, retiring to her notepads and pencils and outlines of skylines. This visit home seemed to be slowly becoming more and more permanent – Ariadne wasn't missing school, her friends. She wasn't even missing Paris, with its beautiful buildings and classical architecture that made her mind whir with inspiration.

She'd been in the back garden when she'd heard the knock at the door. It was a breezy day, but only enough to lightly ruffle her mother's fading hair. The older woman was sat with her eyes shut in a garden chair, a cigarette in one hand and a bottle in the other and her shoes on the floor. She was humming; Ariadne found it eerie enough to not be able to look away. So, she stood in the doorway and watched her mother drink and tip her ash on to the dying grass like it was her favourite thing to do.

Then she'd heard her name whispered on the wind. A whispered scream. _Ariadne. _It was enough to bring up goosebumps.

Glancing around, she blinked. She looked at her mother – she hadn't heard anything, but _that _wasn't a surprise. She barely heard a word Ariadne said, before or after she ran away and came back again.

Then there was the knock at the door.

"D'you want me to get that, mom?" It took Ariadne a couple of moments to tear her eyes away from the sky –she'd somehow thought she'd find the source of the shout by looking there – there was another knock.

"Hmmm?" Her mother's eyes opened slowly, blearily and not really seeing. "What was that, baby?"

"The door. I'll get it." Ariadne retreated slowly through the kitchen, the hallway, to the door. The figure of a man was blurred yet visible through the frosted glass.

She opened the door, a greeting halfway through her lips before she'd seen his face. Her eyes moved upwards, starting with the polished shoes, then the pristine trousers, the waistcoat and shirt. Then the face.

Everything tilted like a boat being rocked, and Ariadne ended up on the floor, trying desperately to recapture some of the air that'd left her lungs.

"Ariadne, it's okay – look at me, alright? Look at me." He took her face in her hands, kneeling beside her and forcing her in to soothing eye contact. She found a fountain of calm in his dark eyes. "You're in limbo. Ariadne, you've been in limbo. None of this is real. You're dreaming."

She blinked, dumb and as good as deaf but thankfully not blind. She put her hands over his, her throat suddenly dry and lacking coherent words as she looked up at him. He mustn't have cared that she was gaping at him like a fish, or that she was wearing dirty clothes and that she hadn't brushed her teeth that morning; he took a moment to brush his thumb tenderly along her cheekbone.

"I'm here to bring you back."


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm here to bring you back."

"No you're not."

They both looked up; Ariadne's mother was stood in the hallway a few metres from them. She still had the bottle in one hand, but in the other she now held a golden chess piece.

"M-my totem." Adriadne's hand went to her pocket out of instinct, even though the bishop was clearly not there. This was the first time she'd thought about since…since…. "Arthur, she's touching it, you said no one can touch-"

"It's alright," Arthur's voice was firm, calm. An anchor. "She's a projection, Ariadne. She's not real."

"I'm her mother," Ariadne winced at the drunken slur, recoiling away from her. "Of course I'm real. What did I tell you about men, Ariadne? They lie, don't they? Like daddy lied. That's why I said we'd never have another one in this house!"

On the word 'house' she launched the bottle at them; Arthur only just managed to pull Ariadne to the ground before the bottle shattered above their heads against the doorframe. Ariadne cried out, putting her hands above her head to shield herself from the falling glass, but when she saw Arthur pull the gun from the holster beneath his coat she screamed louder.

"_Don't_-" She put her hand on the barrel of the gun, forcing it down.

Arthur stared at her in alarm, every so often glancing back to the drunk woman in the hallway, who was now sat on the floor, leaning against the stairs with her eyes shut, chest heaving, mumbling in a voice too low for him to hear.

"She's my mom." Ariadne's voice broke and squeaked, staring at him pleadingly. She only let go of the gun when it became plain that Arthur wasn't going to shoot – she kept a hand out just in case. "Y-you can't. She's my mom, Arthur."

"She's a projection." Arthur's tone was firm, but not harsh. He wasn't heartless, merely focused – Ariadne knew this, but still.

"She's harmless." The girl (because that's how she felt then, a young girl surrounded by adults) shakily got to her feet, putting her hand down on the glass to steady herself but not really caring about the tiny shards that pricked her palm.

Arthur got to his feet too; Ariadne saw that he didn't relax his grip on the gun, or holster it, but left it at his side. His wariness flooded through to Ariadne, and she took a step closer to her mother with extreme caution. The fact that she felt so on-edge around her own mother planted a cannon-ball of guilt next to the one made of nerves in the pit of her stomach. It might not have been uncalled for, but it wasn't right.

"Mom…" She spoke softly; Arthur kept close behind her. His presence was reassuring. "Mom…?"

"You lied to me…" The whine was tearful and nearly incoherent, but it was there. The woman looked up at Ariadne from the floor with red-rimmed eyes. "You lied to me, baby. You promised you'd look after me. Then you ran away."

Ariadne could feel Arthur's eyes on her; he was getting an insight in to her history that she hadn't told anyone about. "I couldn't, mom. I couldn't look after you. You were too…too…"

"Too what?" Came the reply, as sharp and as cutting as the glass on the floor. "Too _what, _Ariadne? Too lonely? Too heartbroken? That's what men do to you, baby, that's all they do. I told you to never, _never _let them get to you."

The drunken woman slowly got up from the floor; Ariadne looked at the bishop in her right hand to avoid looking at her reproachful glare. She didn't notice the large shard of glass in her left.

"And now you're _leaving me_ for one!" The older woman lunged, stabbing the glass point towards Ariadne's face.

Ariadne didn't have time to react; Arthur had an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him and turning her away from her mother in one swift motion. Then the gunshots resounded bleakly in the broken hallway; one, two, three. Ariadne flinched with each shot and then there were tears brimming in her eyes; her heart was pounding like she'd just run a mile in a minute.

The silence was almost as deafening as the gunshots once it settled in around them; Arthur let go of Ariadne after a few tense moments, moving away from her completely and stepping further in to the house. If Ariadne wasn't so reluctant to turn around and see the corpse, and if her hands hadn't been shaking so much she would have reached for him, terrified that he was going to vanish as quickly as he'd come.

She put one hand over her eyes, preparing to slowly turn around, but a hand came down on her shoulder. A warm, comforting weight. "Go outside, Ariadne."

She didn't need telling twice. The door was still open, she stumbled out of it and down the steps from the porch to the soft lawn where she all but collapsed. Breath was still hard to come by. Putting her head between her knees and wiping her eyes on the backs of her hands, she tried to remember where she'd gotten lost.

Arthur came outside around two minutes later, walking over to where she was sat with his hands in his pockets. He dropped something on to the grass beside her without saying anything; the golden bishop rolled to stop beside Ariadne's foot. She looked up at him, about to ask why he'd touched it, only to see him removing the leather glove he'd used to pick it up.

She quickly grabbed it, crawling to the cement path up to her house and setting the chess piece on the smooth surface. She tapped it with enough force to tip it in the real world; it only wobbled, finding it's balance again. Ariadne snatched it up and bounced it in her palm, before tucking it in to her pocket. Arthur had been watching her carefully.

Their gaze met and Ariadne had to look down again. She was embarrassed. Embarrassed by what had been revealled, embarrassed of how easily her dreams had tricked her in to thinking she was in reality. Embarrassed by how, for a half second when she'd answered the door, she hadn't recognised him.

"What happened?" She broke the silence. "What happened to Fischer? What happened to Cobb – did he find Saito? How…how did I get here?"

Arthur checked his watch, saying nothing. His reluctance to answer made her go cold.

"Arthur, you've got to tell me."

"None of you woke up." Arthur muttered bluntly, looking anywhere but at her. "From what I've gathered…the kick you gave yourself and Fischer sent you both off further in to limbo, your own personal limbos. You were too late to catch on to the kick going through the other dream levels."

"What about Cobb?" Ariadne hugged her knees to her chest, staring at Arthur in spite of how he couldn't face her.

"He went in after Saito, and he didn't wake up. Neither of them did." Arthur's tone gave away nothing regarding his emotions. He sounded like a computer, an automatic, unfeeling response. "They're both lost. Fischer, too."

Ariadne took a moment to process this information, rubbing her eyes once more even though they were already dry. She felt hollow, sick. It seemed that the floor was tilting again; she put her hands out to steady herself and felt the cuts from earlier sting against the grass.

"With the amount of time we had, the amount of people, the amount of sedatives left… We could only go back for one person." Arthur finally looked at her, and her eyes widened with horror and comprehension. "So-"

"Me? You came back for me?" She shakily got to her feet, staggering slightly; he faced away from her so that she was left staring at his perfect profile. "Why would you come back for me, Arthur? Cobb…Cobb has kids, a family, and Saito has a wife and a company to run. And what about Fischer – he was the whole reason we did all of this! Why _the hell_ would you come back for me?"

Anger flared like a fire in her chest; it was just so wrong. There was no reason to save her, some scrawny little student with no friends and no one who would miss her a couple of bottles down the line. She was so infuriatingly insignificant, in the eyes of everything, and they'd chosen to come back for _her_? Arthur met Ariadne's glare with a level, controlled expression.

"Ariadne, you didn't let me finish."

Those six words cut through her anger and made her feel very, very childish. And yet, there was a deflating feeling accompanying the thought that they might not have wanted to come back for her after all. That Arthur might not have wanted to come back for her.

"We went in to find you, but we couldn't. And we ran out of time." Arthur carried on, a little more hurriedly, probably fearful of Ariadne interrupting and jumping to conclusions again. "The plane landed and the four of you were unconscious. If it wasn't for the fact that Saito told the airline staff to follow our orders, I doubt any of us would have gotten out of there. The four of you…you looked like you were dead. Being so deep in limbo…it must have slowed down all your bodily functions; it was almost impossible to find your pulse. You looked like a coma patient…or a corpse."

Arthur's voice was hollow, shaken. Ariadne glanced at him, but he was staring in to space. "What happened then, Arthur?"

"Well, we had to run. I tried to sort some things to see that Cobb's 'dead' body would get back to Miles…if it hasn't worked then he's in the hands of the US authorities as a wanted criminal, or with Cobalt Industries as an defenceless extractor who didn't get the job done. I'm not sure which is worse. If he's with Miles, Miles will know that he's in limbo; if he can't get Cobb out himself, he'll find someone who can." Arthur sighed, running a hand over his hair. "Fischer is with his people. Saito is with his. They're both trained to resist extraction, so…hopefully the people who taught them are going to be able to realise they're not actually dead."

"Hopefully?"

He nodded, sparing her a fleeting glance as the message sunk in. Unless the people who had them knew that they were in limbo, Cobb, Saito and Fischer were being treated as corpses.

"I took you and the suitcase; Saito's people managed to get us on to a plane that was just leaving the airport – we had to hide in the luggage hold. That's where we are now." Arthur glanced upwards, almost as if he was expecting to see the steel belly of the plane they were in. "Thankfully there's been no turbulence. Eames and Yusuf got separate flights out of there as well, but barely. We were lucky it didn't come to blows."

Ariadne let out a sigh of audible relief at the fact that Eames and Yusuf were okay; _something _had gone right.

They looked at each other; her eyes found his at the same moment his searched for hers. His gaze was almost apologetic; Ariadne remembered the way he'd looked and sounded when he'd spoken about how she'd appeared dead. Horrified. Empty.

He looked away just as she was about to speak, talking over her. "So, now we're running. Hiding. Three people presumed dead were found on that plane, and now the four of us – you, Eames, Yusuf and myself – are suspects. Not to mention, Eames and I are wanted for other offenses, completely unrelated to this."

Ariadne nodded, hugging herself slightly and looking at the floor. She'd expected as much. They'd all prepared for what to do if the job went awry – fake IDs, fake passports; Saito had transferred half of the money he was paying them each to these especially made accounts before they'd left for the airport in Sydney. It was a good job, too, now that Ariadne thought about it. She'd never have thought in her wildest dreams that things could've gone so-

There was the distinctive clicking of someone thumbing back the hammer on a gun.

"Do you want to do it, or shall I?" Arthur asked, ever the professional and the gentleman, offering Ariadne the gun.

* * *

_The looking glass, so shiny and new,_  
_How quickly the glamour fades._  
_I start spinning, slipping out of time;_  
_Was that the wrong pill to take? - Rabbit Heart, Florence + the Machine_

* * *

_**Author's Note: Right, I'm off on holiday on Monday and I'm gonna be out of action for four weeks. Two in Crete with the family, and two in Greenwich (London) straight after. By myself. On this apparently amazing acting course I auditioned for earlier this year. I'm going to be living in a house with a bunch of other dramatic teenagers, none of which I know or have met before, with little to no adult supervision apart from when we're doing the workshops.**_

_**Oh, the possibilities.**_

_**But alas, there will be no internet. I probably wont get another chapter in before I leave, so this is goodbye for four weeks!**_

_**Hannah**_

_**P.S. I LOVE ALL YOU LOVELY LOVES WHO TAKE THE TIME TO REVIEW. YOU'RE LOVELY. **_


	3. Chapter 3

_Happiness hit her like a bullet in the brain,_

_Struck from a great height, by someone who should've known better than that. ~ Dog Days, Florence + The Machine_

* * *

Ariadne opened her eyes to the dim, unthreatening light of the luggage hold. She was stiff from laying down for so long – especially on the cold, metal floor, and it took a few moments before she was able to sit up properly without wincing. Around her, also wired up to the silver suitcase were a few of Saito's airline staff – the ones that had been on the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles. Of course, Ariadne realised, they were being treated as suspects as well. The blonde female flight attendant who'd watched the suitcase during the Fischer job gave Ariadne a small smile as she woke up; she was scared, Ariadne realised. They all were.

Arthur was sat against the curved wall of the hold; his eyes opened slowly just as Ariadne looked at him.

"Welcome back." His lips quirked in to that almost-smile that Ariadne had gotten used to in the weeks running up to the job, working by his side every day. She loved it.

Star struck for a moment, Ariadne didn't have time to reply before Arthur was on his feet and giving instructions, instructions that he went on to complete himself when the airline staff just looked at him with bleary eyes – they'd probably never dreamed like that before, it must have been disorientating. She subconsciously curled a fist around the bishop in her pocket.

"Change in to these," He threw a bundle of clothes in to Ariadne's lap, not sparing her a glance as he carefully wound in the wires from the machine and checked the levels of sedative left over; empty.

"…What, in here?" Ariadne understood the necessity of the air hostess uniform; blending in with the others working on the plane, but she had to admit she didn't feel comfortable stripping down in front of Arthur and a bunch of strangers. She saw that he had his own uniform, neatly folded, beside his suitcase on the floor.

"You can go behind those suitcases, if you like." Arthur was in work-mode, head down, concentrating on the seriousness of the situation and the need for everything to run smoothly. He didn't even notice the blush creeping in to Ariadne's cheeks. "No one will look. Your suitcase from the plane is over there."

Ariadne glanced where Arthur had pointed, thankful for the comforting knowledge that she had her own clothes to change in to once they reached the other end of the flight. If they got a chance to stop. She fingered the blue polyester uniform dubiously, before conceding to the fact that she didn't have a choice.

The plane touched down in what Arthur informed Ariadne was Paris.

"_But won't they guess that we'd come back here, since Paris was our base, and Miles lives here, and-"_

"_You're forgetting, Ariadne, that the people we're convicted as aren't really who we are. You now have three identities, remember? Your real one; the one with the account that Saito put the money in to; and the one you boarded the plane as. Saito is very secretive with his monetary transactions, so no one should be able to find out about the large sums of cash he's been handing out – that means that identity is pretty much safe. Once we reach Paris, you're the person with the money and no connection to Dom Cobb, Professor Miles, or anything else that might link you to the girl who got on the plane, or the girl you were before you got involved in this business."_

The plane was large, and therefore the luggage hold had two doors. One on the right side of the plane near the nose, and one on the left side near the tail. So, whilst the luggage handlers were opening the door on the right, six inconspicuous flight attendants disembarked from the left.

"Think of this as a game." Arthur suggested as they were crossing the tarmac to the Arrivals terminal. "You're playing air hostess for a day."

"I never had much time for those sorts of games."

"Better late than never, then." At this cheerful reply she shot him a reproachful look; since they'd landed and infiltrated the airport unnoticed he'd seemed astoundingly calm. Like he did this sort of thing all the time.

Which he probably did. Ariadne was forced to review the very little she knew about Arthur; he was potentially a very dangerous man, after all. A man who willingly got himself involved in illegal activity, had a gun tucked in to the back of his trousers as if it was the most normal thing in the world, had saved Ariadne's life for what was probably not going to be the last time, and had kissed her. For what was _hopefully_ not going to be the last time.

She'd never felt safer with anyone else.

"…Why are you looking at me like that?"

"…No reason. How's my cheesy air hostess smile?"

"Perfect."

* * *

The phrase 'I hope you enjoyed your flight' got incredibly old incredibly quickly, Ariadne found out. Standing by the doors that the newly arrived and newly departing passengers came and went through, with her on one side and Arthur on the other, time was passing very slowly. Arthur had decided that it would seem suspicious if they left the airport right away (news of the three 'dead' bodies found on a plane, one of which having been hopefully smuggled away must've reached people by now), so they were to work for a few hours before changing clothes and leaving out the back, with the other staff. The only plus she'd found so far was that Arthur looked just as good in the uncomfortably hot, sky blue blazer (sleeves rolled up) as he did in his usual clothes.

And then the security came.

They were wandering around the terminal at ease, obviously not looking for anyone in particular (yet), but Ariadne still couldn't help the way her heartbeat increased. Being on the run was really not going to be good for her health, she realised. They eventually wandered over; Ariadne kept her forced and slightly painful smile directed to the passengers that she was greeting. The way she was feeling, she might as well have had 'I'm The One You're Looking For' written across her forehead. Being guilty or innocent had nothing to do with it.

Arthur managed to strike up a conversation with them. There he was, as casual as anything, chatting away to these bulky men in bullet-proof vests with batons and guns. Ariadne could only breath easily once they'd gone away.

"What were you thinking?" She hissed when they decided to take a break, queuing for coffee in one of the many airport cafes.

"Hmmm?" Arthur's hearing was fine, Ariadne knew – he'd heard exactly what she'd asked. "What was that?"

"Talking to the security guards." Ariadne's voice barely rose above a whisper. "Not the smartest move."

"On the contrary, it was a very smart move." Arthur informed her as they headed over to a table in the corner of the room, secluded and hidden amongst the chatter of holidaymakers. A crying baby and an arguing old couple made it so that they could talk without having to lower their voices. "News of what happened hasn't reached Paris yet. I think they're trying to keep it quiet."

"Well, that's good, right?" Ariadne cupped her hands around her Styrofoam coffee cup, letting the warmth and earthy smell ground her. She reached in to the pocket of her uniform blazer, placed the bishop on the table and tipped it; it fell in to her waiting hand. It was more of a habit than a necessity now.

"You'd think so." Arthur muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and leaning back in his chair slightly, staring in to his coffee. "It means Cobalt might have Cobb, and they're paying people to stay quiet."

"What would they do with him?" Ariadne asked, not amazingly sure about whether she wanted to know the answer. Arthur met her gaze for the briefest of moments; it was plain that he was unsure about telling her.

"They…would probably know that he's not dead. They'd use the fact that he's unknowingly dreaming to take advantage of him…make him hurt for failing to come through with the job they hired him for." Arthur muttered, his low voice and reluctance to go in to detail leaving Ariadne's imagination to take over.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

There was a silence between them, made less profound by the noisy environment, but still there. When Ariadne looked up from her coffee Arthur was already looking at her; his guard had been down for the briefest of moments, his expression had been soft.

"You're doing really well, you know." He said quietly, after a moment. "Coping with…with everything."

Ariadne bobbed her head modestly, looking at the tabletop because Arthur's gaze was doing funny things to her stomach. "You should see the big mess of nerves I am on the inside."

He laughed, it was a warm, genuine and heartbreakingly brief sound that seemed totally out of place in the crazy situation they were in. "That's always the way, isn't it?"

Ariadne nodded, even though she had no idea whether that was always the way. This was her first time.

She had to spit something out before her courage left her: "Arthur?"

"Hmm?" He raised an eyebrow.

"If I had to…I mean, I know I wouldn't, but…" She flushed pink. She'd cocked this up already. "I'm glad that I'm in this mess with you. Out of any of the others…you might think I'm coping well, but, that's only really because of you."

He took a moment to process this, and Ariadne couldn't look at him for that painstakingly long minute. "Thank you."

…_Thank you? _Ariadne glanced up, and her thoughts must've read plainly on her face because Arthur shrugged sheepishly.

"What else are you supposed to say to something like that?" He asked, and Ariadne found herself smiling slightly at how flustered he was. He got to his feet, picking up his coffee. "C'mon, we've got another few hours before I think it'll be alright to go. I might just get a job here, one day, I'm genuinely enjoying myself…"

Ariadne hoped he was joking.

* * *

After picking up their bags and changing clothes in the staff toilets, Arthur and Ariadne made their way through many the 'Staff Only' corridors until they got to one of the back doors leading on to the car park. It was dark outside; Ariadne didn't have a watch and hadn't cared to look at a clock since landing. She had no idea of the time she'd spent unconscious. The female flight attendant who'd helped them on the plane was stood outside with a few of the others, having a cigarette break. She gave them both a nod that Ariadne signified a wish of good luck.

They were about to head towards the car Arthur had left in the car park as a precaution (this was the same airport they'd gone to when leaving Paris for Sydney, what seemed like a million years ago), there was the distinct thrumming of a mobile phone on silent; it belonged to one of the flight attendants having a smoke, Ariadne presumed.

Neither she nor Arthur were going to pay it any attention until there was the clack of heels hurriedly behind them, and a hand on Arthur's shoulder. It was the blonde again, and she pressed the phone in to Arthur's hand, smiling slightly, before heading back to her friends to give them space.

Arthur held the phone to his ear, cautious as ever as he listened. And then his expression became one of annoyance. "…Trust you to get her number before we started the job – is there an ounce of professionalism in your body?"

* * *

_**Well, whaddya know? I got another chapter out after all! I have all this inspiration for once, it's dangerously brilliant. I'm doing my family's head in talking about Inception and it's just going to get worse when I go away and can't watch something with Tom Hardy (Eames) in at least once a day. But let's not get me started on him, I could go on and on... 3**_

**_Thank you, lovely readers who review and lovely readers who don't, and lovely readers who put me on alerts and favourites and all that jazz. You're all stars._**


	4. Chapter 4

Ariadne felt a little lift somewhere in her chest at the notion of who might be on the other end of the phone.

"Yes…yes I'm sure you thought it would come in useful." Arthur rolled his eyes, looking at the floor as he listened to the response. "Alright. Yeah, I got her. She's fine, absolutely fine."

He glanced at Ariadne, who offered him a weak smile in return.

"Have you had any trouble?" Arthur asked, and the reply was quite long. He stayed perfectly motionless, listening intently, as Ariadne tried to decipher the buzz of words she could hear from the phone. "No, neither have we. Oddly quiet, isn't it? If I were you…Oh, alright then, don't take my advice. I forget how comfortable you are being on the wrong side of the law…A hypocrite? I'm not a hypocrite- Oh. Yes, she's right here."

He passed the phone to Ariadne, apparently eager to get it away from him. Ariadne took the phone, pressing it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Ariadne." Eames' rich voice was like a soft blanket of comfort; Ariadne had been worrying about him. "I'm glad to hear that you found your way out of limbo - you had me worried for a moment, darling."

"I was rescued." Ariadne muttered, shooting a furtive glance at Arthur who politely pretended not to notice.

"Arthur's a little too much of a killjoy to be a knight in shining armour, surely?" Eames chuckled. "Looks like an accountant, acts like James Bond, drinks like a girl and dresses like my grandfather."

"Ha ha." Ariadne rolled her eyes, but softened her tone as she went on. "How're you? Where are you now?"

"London," Eames seemed pleased. "Visiting some old friends. Seeing as the passport I boarded the plane with was Canadian, I figured it'd be safe to go home for a little while."

"We're in Paris." Ariadne said softly, although she thought he probably knew this already. "Do you reckon we'll be able to meet up any time soon?"

Arthur's expression darkened considerably at this notion, though a small twitch of the lips indicated this was in jest.

"I doubt it, darling. I want to make sure no one's on my tail, first." Eames muttered. "I highly doubt there is anyone, with me being as good as I am, but better safe than sorry."

"Alright." Ariadne nodded. "Alright. I'll talk to you soon then, hopefully?"

"If I can get a hold of you." Eames replied. "Be careful."

"I should be saying that to you. At least I've got someone to stop me from walking in to trouble." Ariadne muttered, frowning slightly. "You're on your own."

"Darling, if anything _I'm _the trouble that other people want to avoid walking in to." Eames' smirk showed through in his voice. "You should come to London. The crime scene is a lot more hospitable, if you know the right people. The right people, of course, being myself."

"I'll think about it." Ariadne smiled. "Stay safe."

"You too." There was a click as Eames hung up. Ariadne walked past Arthur, handing the phone back to the air hostess.

"Eames always did choose the most inconvenient times for polite conversation." Arthur muttered as Ariadne returned to him. "Usually when I'm being shot at – it's nice to see he's branched out to when I'm not trying to draw attention to myself, too."

"He's invited us to London." The squeak was unavoidable. London was somewhere Ariadne had yet to see, and the very idea of it was making her excited. She hoped that the slight flush of embarrassment in her cheeks was invisible under the moon.

Arthur pulled a face as they began to continue their way across the dark car park, Ariadne falling in to step beside him; a quick pace to match his long strides.

"What's wrong with London?" Ariadne asked when Arthur didn't explain the reasoning behind his expression.

"Nothing, I suppose." He left the sentence hanging so that she knew that was not all he had to say on the subject, but fell silent again. Ariadne took a tiny moment to appreciate how the amber glow of the street lights accentuated the angles of his face. Then she shook herself.

They reached the car; taking the keys out of his pocket Arthur silently opened the passenger door for Ariadne, who slid on to the seat with an awkward attempt at effortlessness. Only once he had put the PASIV device on the backseat and settled in front of the wheel did he complete his objection to London.

"I just thought you might want to check on Cobb first."

"Cobb?" Ariadne's stomach gave a guilty throb as the car slid in to motion. She hadn't thought about Cobb since she'd woken up. "You said…you said you were going to try and get him to Professor Miles, right?"

Arthur nodded. "I haven't heard from him yet, but I think he'd be avoiding contacting me at the moment to be on the safe side."

There was silence for a moment. Ariadne was trying to get rid of the images of Cobb's lifeless body swarming her brain. She knew Arthur wouldn't try to reassure her everything would be fine – they were both well aware of the distinct possibility that it wouldn't. Neither Cobb nor Arthur had ever gone in to detail about the company Cobb had been running from, but imagining Cobb vulnerable and defenceless (something Ariadne had never known him to be), directly in harm's way was making Ariadne edgy. And tearful. She ducked her head, hoping the shadows and fleeting light would hide the fact she was wiping her eyes.

Arthur flicked a sideways glance in her direction, and then nudged a box of tissues across the dashboard towards her.

* * *

They reached Paris and Arthur, as ever, had everything set out perfectly as far as what they were going to do right then was concerned.

"We'll stay in a hotel tonight. Nothing too noticeable. Tomorrow I'm going to go and visit Miles and see if anything went according to plan. Whilst I'm doing this you should probably go home and pack some clothes. Make sure you do it at a time when no one who will recognise you will be around." They'd parked the car in a secluded car park that Ariadne had already forgotten the way to, and were now walking through the deserted streets.

Paris in the early hours was something Ariadne had experienced only a few times before – she'd never been able to cope with staying out too late with friends; it made her feel a bit of a wallflower, but she'd grown to accept it over her time of being a student. The lights of the city seemed delicate – their time was almost up, after all. Ariadne could tell the sun would be coming up soon.

A wave of tiredness hit her all of a sudden, and her feet began to drag. She knew Arthur was matching her slow pace out of kindness; the expression of readiness on his face didn't match the gentle loping gait. Things begun to blur in the breaking light, and Ariadne was vaguely aware of a warm hand closing around hers, the lobby of a hotel and someone taking off her shoes. Then her head hit a pillow and sleep came too quickly for her to really appreciate it.

* * *

Arthur walked quickly through the hallways of the college where Cobb had found Ariadne; he was keeping his head down and trying not to return any of the looks he got from the students, be they friendly or otherwise. Miles was not in his office, but one of the other professors had told Arthur which auditorium he liked to work in.

He'd felt hesitant about leaving Ariadne by herself that morning – she was new to being a wanted criminal, after all, whilst for Arthur it went under his list of Occupations, right underneath Point Man and Thief. But the peacefulness on her face as she'd succumbed to sleep had warned him away from waking her; unlike on the plane, she hadn't appeared dead, merely weary.

She was incredibly brave, Arthur now knew. And strong, stronger than Cobb had realised when he'd hired her. Although Arthur had started working in dreams at a younger age than Ariadne was now, he'd never been exposed to so much so quickly as she had. So much danger, insecurity and doubt about your own morals, your own world.

He arrived at a door, shaking himself out of his reverie; although the depth of his thoughts hadn't registered on his face. Arthur always had been and always would be a fairly closed book.

"Miles?"

His voice echoed down the seats towards the white-haired man sat behind the desk at the bottom of the room. Miles looked up from the papers in front of him, looking at the Point Man as if he couldn't quite believe who or what was right in front of him. There was a long pause where Arthur put his hands in his pockets, long fingers automatically turning the die and feeling the pockmarked sides; his thumb rested on the side with six dots.

"Arthur. It's been a while since we've spoken in person." Miles got to his feet, removing his glasses.

Arthur gave a singular nod of agreement, but said nothing. He stood at the top of the stairs, staying in the corner of the room by the door. He liked Miles, the man passed on wisdom to him through Cobb, but right now Arthur was only interested in one thing; the fate of his old accomplice. The older man took a moment to acknowledge Arthur's sole motive, before tucking his glasses in to the breast pocket of his jacket and speaking. He sighed.

"He's gone. Right now, he's probably on a plane back to the states. To see Philipa and James."

* * *

Ariadne woke up alone, with the dull, heavy feeling of being out of sync with her body clock and having been in a dark room for a long time. The peachy curtains glowed faintly with the promise of sunlight, but Ariadne wanted to burrow back under the covers and stay there. Vague recollections of the past twenty four hours made her head throb. She wanted more sleep.

Wait, no she didn't. There was something she had to do first. The bishop was in her pocket and it clattered comfortingly on to the bedside table.

_Now _she could happily burrow back under the covers of the soft hotel bed. She went to do so, but as her head went down to rest on the pillow once more she heard and felt the crinkle of paper. Sitting up, still bleary-eyed, she unfolded the hotel stationary and peered at the impeccably neat handwriting that could only be Arthur's.

_Ariadne,_

_In case you don't remember – go home today, pack some clothes and prepare to be on the run for some time. Try to be minimalistic about what you bring, and make sure you don't run in to anyone you know. If you wait at your old student lodging I'll meet you there – I'm going to see Miles, so someone at the university can tell me where it was you stayed._

_Arthur_

Ariadne knew that it was probably silly of her to notice this fact above all else; he hadn't signed it with a last name. She checked the clock on the bedside table; it was early afternoon. All of her old flatmates would just be finishing morning lessons and heading out for lunch; they very rarely went back to the flats to eat.

With a sigh, she flung the covers away from her and swung her feet over the side of the bed.

* * *

It was almost eerie, walking through the streets of Paris that she still knew like the back of her hand, but that she hadn't travelled in what seemed like the longest of times. She felt detached, set apart from the rest of the people traversing the streets with normal goals like food shopping or visiting friends. Their little lives seemed so closed – how were they not aware of all the excitement and wonder that went on right underneath their noses! And, she thought, all the danger that went on unnoticed within that.

She was surprised that she still had the keys to get in to the student village – their weight was familiar, and yet cold. Unused. A few of the other students were milling around the corridors and the courtyard – none Ariadne particularly knew or liked.

Elevator. Floor three. The mundane routine of her old life was starting to come back, but slipping in to her flat as quietly as possibly made her feel like a thief – something that ran with the new direction her life had taken.

Bedroom. Rucksack. Wardrobe. Clothes.

…Toothbrush? Ariadne headed in to her little ensuite bathroom, examining the contents of her shelves. Did a toothbrush really count as a necessity when she was on the run from the law? _Wow. That was an odd thing to think._ She grabbed it from the pot on the shelf, looked at it for a moment, and then headed back to the bedroom to continue grabbing clothes.

She caught sight of herself in the full length mirror stuck to her bathroom door and doubled-back.

Different. She looked so, _so _different. Struggling to remember the last time she'd really looked at herself, Ariadne took a step closer, her eyes scanning over the slightly gaunt face – the roundness in her cheeks lost to long days and little want for lunch breaks – the bags under her eyes. She looked older. World-weary. She dropped the toothbrush.

Ariadne found herself sinking on to the end of her bed and unable to tear her eyes away from the stranger in the mirror.

* * *

"What do you mean?" A rash or surprised reaction was something Arthur never gave, so when he calmly asked Miles to expand on his explanation, the older man didn't seem to be troubled by his composure. But still, the room seemed quiet, as if every object was holding it's breath to hear the story.

"He woke up. By himself." Miles walked around to the front of his desk, leaning against it. "He'd only been in Paris half an hour when he just sat up. Mumbled something about limbo, and needing to call a man named Saito. This Saito man had been in limbo too, it transpired. Somehow they'd woken up together, despite no longer being hooked up to the PASIV device. This man fixed things so Dom could go home, and that's where he's gone."

Arthur listened, the blank mask on his face concealing his engrossment in Miles' story. There was a long pause where the cogs in his mind could almost be heard working before he spoke. "…He just woke up?"

Miles nodded. "Something must have stirred him in the dream. He may have checked his totem, or the illusion may have slipped slightly. It may have just been the act of finding Saito. I didn't want to delay him from going home any longer, so I didn't ask."

Arthur took a moment to process this, before bobbing his head in a conserved farewell as he turned to leave. "Thank you, Miles."

"Arthur-"

The Point Man's hand had closed around the door handle, but he paused to hear what Miles had to say.

"Dom isn't going back in to the extraction business, Arthur. Never again. He came close to a fate worse than death this last time. If I were you, I would quit before the same happens to you."

There was a minute of silence and stillness as older man's warning hung in the air, drifting towards Arthur like chilled smoke.

"Thank you for the advice, Miles." Arthur's tone was the epitome of politeness as he shut the door behind him.

* * *

Ariadne was roused by knocking at the door.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting there, on the end of her bed like a statue, just staring at herself. The enormity of the change that she and her life had undergone was weighing down on her as if she were being smothered by a huge, heavy pillow; there was a vague ringing in her ears, and she couldn't shake the feeling that dreaming _used_ to have; that she couldn't talk or run or even move. Back when she dreamt as a by-product of sleep, and not the other way around.

The knocking on the door grew impatient.

She got to her feet, stumbling like a particularly clumsy zombie. Her limbs felt dead and heavy. Her subconscious still had its wits about it, however, because she somehow she managed to put the chain across the door before opening it a jar.

Arthur took in her appearance for a few moments, looking her up and down in a way that would have made Ariadne feel self-conscious if she hadn't been so out of it. She quickly (slowly) shut the door and removed the chain before opening it again. Arthur was inside the room and had his gun in hand in seconds, and all Ariadne could do was blink dumbly as he prepared to sweep search her few rooms for the cause of her distresss.

"It's nothing. Nothing's happened." She mumbled quickly; he stopped. "It's…just me."

He paused, holstering the gun and watching Ariadne for a moment. "What do you mean?"

Embarrassment made her cheeks flush, and she looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers together. "Being back here…so much has happened so quickly." She gulped. "I've done a lot of growing up in a short space of time. I can see it, now I'm back in this place where I used to fit…I've changed so much. It's…almost scary."

Ariadne felt incredibly stupid; her problems must have seemed so trivial to Arthur, perfect, professional Arthur who had been doing this for years. She couldn't dare to meet his gaze.

She was surprised when she felt him tug her comfortingly against his chest.

_

* * *

_

She told me not to step on the cracks  
I told her not to fuss and relax  
Well, her pretty little face stopped me in my tracks  
But now she sleeps with one eye open  
That's the price she paid

_ – _Girl With One Eye, Florence + the Machine

* * *

_**Author's Note: Well, uh, hi there. Long time no speak, hey? But seriously…I have had the most amazing 2 weeks. That acting course I went on? Genuine life-changing experience. Met so many interesting people with such interesting lives and stories, participated in many amazing things.**_

_**In the two weeks before that, however, I was under the baking sun of Crete, plotting away by the side of the pool.**_

_**Yes, this fanfiction is now planned out from start to finish. I have an ending. It might make you cry, providing I do it well.**_

_**However, I can't guarantee it'll be good. Enjoy where you can.**_


	5. Chapter 5

**_I've been a bad, bad, bad girl. :[ I can't apologise enough for dropping this...but I hope bringing it back will count as some sort of apology? If details don't match up, PLEASE point it out to me, I've forgotten quite a lot. But I'm gonna try and finish this, I swear. I owe it to you guys._**

**_On another note, I have some somewhat angsty Arthur/Eames stuff coming up...and I swore I'd never ship that pairing when I left the cinema. Who was I kidding?_**

**_P.S. I know this chapter is pathetic in length. The next one will be much, much longer._**The hug and emotional conversation was not brought up again, although Ariadne felt it was only because Arthur didn't want to run the risk of reminding her of any unpleasant feelings, if she still had any.

* * *

She did. Oh yes, she did.

But, avoiding the girl in the mirror was easier when Arthur was around – whilst she was forever feeling self-conscious, it was never in the way that would make her want to fix her hair or retouch her lipstick. Arthur was so pristine he could make a cat feel ungraceful and un-groomed, not to mention uneducated.

There had been no attempts on their life so far, so it'd been a good few days since exiting the same plane as the two supposed corpses. Cobb was safe and well – for some reason they'd both mutually agreed not to try and contact him. He didn't need it. He needed closure, and they were anything but that. Saito was also safe and well, and apparently very generous – money arrived in their fake accounts the next day with a simple message of 'thank you' to be passed on to them.

"It was Cobb who saved him, not us."

"You need to learn how to accept a gift."

Ariadne had no idea what to buy first.

"An apartment. A big one, with a nice view. No more hotel rooms." She was adding up – spending was not something she did lightly, seeing as she was used to trying to get by as a poor student.

She'd doodled a city skyline in the corner of her notebook.

"I thought you quite liked the hotel-hopping." Arthur said from the other side of the room. He was carefully trying to peel off the _I LOVE PARIS _sticker Ariadne had stuck to the PASIV device without leaving any sticky residue. She'd thought he might have been annoyed (because honestly, what had she been thinking?) but he'd smiled; that almost unnoticeable little twist in the corner of his mouth.

"It's been fun. But I need some consistency. A _home, _not a _room._"

"Do I get a key?"

Silence.

Was he joking? Ariadne didn't dare look up from her notepad to find out. She'd been chewing her pencil, but all motion seemed to stop, especially the breath she should have been taking. She was frozen.

Imagine, Arthur as a friend. Not some aloof, mysterious conman whose coattails she'd gotten caught on, being dragging along for the ride. Arthur popping in for coffee, sat on her sofa watching a movie, Arthur wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans instead of a spotless suit.

Was it wrong, that with the action movie that her life had become, this simple idea seemed so impossible?

"...Are you sticking in the extraction business?" Arthur broke the silence and changed topic, killing two birds with one stone, and Ariadne was so glad because otherwise she would have started to turn blue from lack of oxygen. "We can find another extractor...or we can do it, once we meet up with Eames and Yusuf again."

"Do my ears deceive me or are you actually suggesting working with Eames again?" Her voice was too breathless for her tease to sound right. She glanced up, wondering if he'd noticed her tone, or how she'd avoided giving a real answer.

"Well, he's the best at what he does. And a pain in the ass as well." Arthur had his eyes down; he was now tinkering with one of the valves inside of the PASIV. Ariadne couldn't help but feel relief.

She looked back at her notes – working with impossibly huge sums of money, and thinking whether or not she should plan ahead and buy milk. But...

She was safe. There was no one after her – she could have been killed a million times in the past forty-eight hours. A sniper from an upstairs window, from a passing car. If people wanted her dead, she'd be dead. So why was she being so boring?

Ariadne stood up, shrugged on her jacket. "Arthur, do you want to go shopping?"

* * *

Ariadne, it seemed, was very bad at spending copious amounts of money. She'd treated herself to a new phone and several scarves, with money she could have afforded to wipe her nose on.

Arthur, on the other hand, was very used to spending copious amounts of money. Ariadne had never thought of him as rich, but extraction was a well-paid illegal business. Maybe it was because he had very little to show for it, apart from finely tailored suits and weaponry.

"You hardly have anything." He sounded disapproving. Ariadne's single bag (she'd put the phone bag in with the scarves) rested daintily beneath the cafe table as she stirred her hot chocolate.

"So? I'll spend it on better things, some other time." She couldn't help but smile slightly at him. Most of thing things he'd bought that day he'd had to order (with a fake name of course), so he didn't have many things with him either; a new watch, which he was wearing, and some cufflinks. "Maybe after a few more extraction jobs I'll buy myself a mansion and retire."

The creases that usually accompany a smile formed around Arthur's eyes, but his lips didn't seem to agree. He didn't sound angry when he spoke, merely disapproving. And yet, the smile was in his voice. Gladness, and displeasure. "Are you sure that's what you want to do? I mean, you were excellent on the inception job, but you've still got so many options left open for you."

"Was this business _your _last option?" She pointed her spoon at him, and she couldn't help but smile when his frown indicated that it hadn't been.

"It was the best option I had."

"What's better than this?"

"Being a lawyer, a doctor, an actual architect. It's safer, not necessarily as well-paid, but-"

"So it's about my safety?" It wasn't an accusation, Ariadne wasn't annoyed or offended. In fact, she was touched. "Haven't I proven that I don't need looking after? I think I'm the only one out of the team who's never been shot at. I always follow instructions...well, not always, but I keep myself safe...and sure, the whole going in to limbo idea was mine, and it ended badly, but look, I'm alive-"

"You still can't fire a gun. And you're alive because I came and got you."

It was a kind reality check. A slap on the wrist instead of across the face, but still, it made her pause to think. Ariadne seemed to deflate slightly, sagging a little in her seat. Apart from creating the scenery, what was her purpose? In fact, why had she even gone in to the dream with them in the first place? Saito was only meant to be an onlooker, but he'd turned out to be more useful than-

Arthur's phone buzzed (Ariadne was sure he had at least seven phones - she hadn't seen this one before a few minutes earlier, when he'd quickly put her number in to it), and as she glanced up to watch him answer it she'd caught the way he'd been staring at her and her gut twisted.

"Hello?" Arthur answered without checking the ID, and his tone was casual – this was obviously a phone reserved for people he trusted. After a moment his brow furrowed and his mouth curved down in the corners. "How the hell did you get this number?"

Ariadne was immediately on edge; was it someone from Cobol, after Arthur? Or another old foe she did not know about?"

"This phone is the one I use to keep in contact with people I can rely on. I purposefully didn't give you my number." Arthur continued, his fingers tapping irritably on the tabletop. "Are you still in London? The reception is awful."

Ah. Once again, the mysterious caller proved to be Arthur's favourite sparring partner.

"...Ah. So you're serious about that offer then?" Arthur's eyes flickered to Ariadne, his eyebrows raising slightly; she leant forward, trying to hear Eames' side of the conversation.

Silence, and a more relaxed Arthur. His tapping on the desk ceased.

"I suppose...it's not up to me, really. It depends on what Ariadne wants to do." Arthur replied after a while, and he mouthed to Ariadne 'Do you want to go to London?'.

She answered with a grin, and Arthur sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and resting his elbow on the arm of his chair. But Ariadne didn't miss the small smile that had arisen in response to her own.

"Yes, yes, I asked her. She wants to go." Arthur paused, his gaze going skywards as he listened. "Why're you bothering to ask why I sound so 'put-out'? I'm going to be back in your...questionable company."

The banter continued for another five minutes, before Arthur hung up on Eames' whilst the forger was mid-sentence.

"You don't mind him really." Ariadne said matter-of-factly, sipping her hot chocolate.

"What makes you think that?"

"I just know."

Arthur rolled his eyes, but he didn't dispute it. Instead he changed subject. "Are you sure you want to go? This morning you were saying you wanted to get out of the whole staying in hotels thing."

"Ah." Ariadne set down her cup. "But these will be London hotels. Big difference."


	6. Chapter 6

**_Eh, boy have I got a lot on my plate right now. The best of it consisting of two adorable yet time-consuming kittens, and the worst of it being the divorce of my parents. Again. -.-_**

**_Anyway, I enjoyed writing parts of this chapter, so I hope you enjoy reading it._**

**_Also, it's NaNoWriMo next month, so I might not get anything out for a while. My apologies~_**

* * *

The hour-long flight from Paris to London went in the blink of an eye. Literally, because Ariadne fell asleep before they'd even taken off. She opened her eyes when they touched down at Heathrow, and she was horrified.

"I'm so sorry; I slept through the whole flight." Were the first words out of her mouth; Arthur looked up from his book and pulled his headphones down around his neck. Ariadne caught a few notes of what sounded like The Cure before he shut his MP3 off.

"You obviously needed it."

"But I feel...like I was really unsociable or something," Ariadne laughed, biting on her bottom lip as Arthur got up to get their hand luggage.

Arthur shook his head slightly, and his little smile of amusement made Ariadne blush. Had she snored? Had she talked in her sleep? Or – worst case scenario – had she started drooling all over his shoulder?

His shoulder looked perfectly drool free as they went through Departures. It _felt _perfectly drool free as she leant against as they queued. She purposefully kept her head down as she did this – it was for investigative purposes after all, was it not? So she couldn't see Arthur's expression. But she felt his hand press lightly against the small of her back, ushering her through the barriers.

Eames had apparently sent his 'best man' to pick them up from the airport.

"My best man after you of course, darling." He'd added for Arthur's benefit, and Arthur had merely scowled.

The man waiting with the sign saying 'Arthur & Ariadne' was very tall and very thin and asked to be called String. He seemed nice enough, if a little shifty, pointing out all of the tourist spots and sightseeing locations.

Ariadne tried to ignore the bullet holes in the side of the car.

"This is his place." String tipped his ash out of the window as they stopped. "His is the top floor. If there's a tie on the door handle-"

"Thank you." Arthur cut in quickly, getting out of the car and going to open Ariadne's door for her.

Arthur automatically went for the stairs at a light jog, although after a few floors Ariadne wished she'd taken the rickety-looking elevator, especially with her suitcase. The building was slightly run-down, but charismatically so, and the view of London from the windows she passed was the same way; it was all so very Eames. And of course, the building was old, so Ariadne was admiring the architecture as much as anything.

There was only one room on the top floor, and Ariadne almost let out a sigh of relief when she saw that there wasn't a tie on the door handle. That was one awkward situation averted. Arthur felt around on top of the ledge of the doorframe and found a key, opening the door and holding it for Ariadne to lead the way inside.

"Are you still sore about not staying in one of those big London hotels you were excited about?" Arthur asked as he shut the door behind them, throwing his jacket over the back of the sofa. Although Eames had said that people tended to come and go a lot, his apartment seemed slightly unlived in.

Ariadne shook her head. She had picked up and was studying a framed picture on the coffee table beside the television. It was of four people and the background was dim, possibly a pub or a bar of some sort. To the left stood Cobb and Mal. Ariadne couldn't help the faint shiver she felt at seeing Mal – she thought of the phrase 'you never forget your first'. It applied to projections killing you in dreams.

But she looked so happy. Not Cobb's dark, ethereal shadow that'd followed him throughout the inception job. Mal was radiant, and Cobb was happier than Ariadne had ever seen him. They were holding hands, fingers interlaced and smiling at only each other, ignoring the activity all around them and the person with the camera. They radiated the sort of romance and love Ariadne had only ever seen in movies.

To the right of the photograph was Eames, as handsome and as aware of it as ever, a drink in one hand and the other in his pocket. He hadn't changed much, although maybe here he looked a little less tired, a little less rough around the edges. Ariadne could tell his happiness came from that of the others around him.

And in the middle of all three of them was Arthur, and Ariadne had never seen that smile before.

"What're you looking at?" Arthur wandered over, his shoes clacking neatly on the bare wood floorboards. She felt him looking over her shoulder, and wondered whether it was normal to feel as if she'd been looking at something private.

"This looks...where was this?" She passed him the picture, and as his gaze seemed stuck to it she jumped at the chance to examine his face.

Arthur let out a small huff of breath, his mouth picking up in one corner but his eyes not quite living up the gesture. He took the frame in one hand, the other in his pocket, and Ariadne wondered whether he was holding a certain loaded die.

"I'm pretty sure this was just after Cobb and Mal got engaged. We were in...Scotland." He laughed slightly as everything started to re-emerge. But it still didn't really reach his eyes. "Because Mal wanted to see all the highlands and deer and castles and stuff. The day after this Cobb, Eames and I went golfing and I knocked out three of Eames' teeth and almost broke his jaw. By accident, of course. My hands slipped."

"Of course." Ariadne smiled slightly. She was about to speak again, because suddenly there were lots of questions she wanted to ask, but then the door opened behind them and they both turned around.

"Well hello. What do we have here then?" Eames was lounging in the doorway, hands in his pockets and his head tilted to one side.

Ariadne couldn't help the flood of relief she felt when she saw him. Having him suddenly there reminded how much she enjoyed his company - and how much she'd been worrying about him since Arthur had explained things to her in limbo.

She quickly crossed the room, light on her feet to embrace him. He kissed her on the cheek and she got a brief scratch of stubble and waft of some unknown but pleasant aroma, possibly some sort of cologne. Then he held her out at arm's length, inspecting her.

"So, Arthur's been taking good care of you, then? Remembering that you aren't an inhuman robot like he is, and that you actually need sleep, food and water?"

"Ha ha. Very funny, Mr. Eames." Arthur rolled his eyes, following Ariadne across the room to stand a little way behind her.

"He's not always such an emotionless superhuman. You should see him after a few drinks." Eames smirked at Arthur, and Ariadne turned in time to see Arthur narrow his eyes.

"Enough of that, Eames."

"Why?" Eames grinned, putting an arm around Ariadne's shoulders and leaning in conspiratorially to murmur in her ear, cupping a hand to hide his mouth. "This one time in Morocco-"

"Eames. I mean it." Arthur shifted slightly on his feet, looking a little uncomfortable. "Don't."

"Alright, alright," Eames straightened up, and then added in a stage whisper. "There'll be time for that story later."

Ariadne laughed; Arthur scowled, and she toned it down to a grin.

"Seriously though, we should get a move on. There are people I want you to meet, places I want you to see, drinks I want you to try." Eames clapped Arthur on the shoulder and winked at Ariadne. "Ever since the inception job I've gained even more infamy around here in certain circles. And no, Arthur, before you throw a tantrum, I haven't given away anything. All they know is how dangerous it was and how much I got paid."

Arthur had opened his mouth to oppose exactly what Eames had thought he would; he shut it again, mollified. Instead he said "Are you sure your friends will be appropriate company, Eames? Remember, some of us haven't been on the wrong side of the law for as long as you have."

Ariadne caught his glance.

"These are my friends you're talking about, Arthur. It's a good thing I don't get offended easily."

"I've never worried about offending you before."

"Oh darling, I've noticed."

"Alright ladies." Ariadne cut in, trying not to laugh too much. "You two can stand here and have your little domestic in peace – I'm going to go see London."

"You can't go without me, sweetheart, I'm your escort." Eames grinned, ushering Ariadne out of the door. "If we get a good head start on Arthur I might have time to tell you about that one time in Morocco..."

Arthur blinked, and then hurriedly grabbed his jacket from the back of the sofa. "Oh no you don't."

* * *

Ariadne had never been drunk. Not _really _drunk. And even now, she wasn't drunk. Not really. She was happy. In the blissfully fuzzy, warm sort of way.

"Careful there," Yes, true, she did miss a few steps on the way up to Eames' apartment. It was Arthur's fault, for making her take the stairs anyway.

The evening had been a surprisingly enjoyable blur of dimly lit bars and loud music, city lights and smiling faces. Despite the crime scene she knew she'd been infringing on, she'd felt safe with Arthur and Eames either side of her. In fact, Arthur hadn't really left her side all evening.

"I'm fine Arthur, no really, I'm fine." She had one arm around him (he had put it there, not her, but she wasn't about to complain), and he had a firm arm around her shoulders, guiding her. "I'm not even drunk."

"No, of course not."

"Don't be patronizing. You're being patronizing."

Eames had decided to stay the night with a friend, a very leggy, very blonde friend who Ariadne seemed to vaguely remember from somewhere. So she and Arthur had his apartment to themselves.

"I'm not. I completely agree with you – you're nowhere near drunk. You're...happy." Arthur said, trying not to smile too much as he helped Ariadne through the door.

"Yeah," Ariadne nodded vigorously, rocking with the motion. "That's the right word for it."

She lurched towards the sofa, wanting to lie down. Arthur tried to hold her up, thinking she was falling; somehow she managed to grab his tie and pull him down on top of her.

Ariadne's gasp caught in her throat as Arthur's face was suddenly a few inches from hers. They were frozen for a moment; Ariadne had never known anything to be so still. Three seconds took an hour to pass, and even then they took their time. Then Arthur let out a small breath that Ariadne felt settle on her lips; it gave her the gift of moment again and her lungs remembered she needed air.

But all she did was let her gaze flicker from his eyes to his lips and back again, unwilling to move.

Arthur shifted, and for a moment Ariadne thought he was going to get up and walk away and that the situation would switch from breathtakingly promising to heartbreakingly awkward. He brought up a hand, it settled lightly on her cheek and she wanted to reach for her purse, where her totem had been stowed away.

His eyes were overwhelming. Ariadne was finding it hard to even blink, not wanting to look away or waste a second. Arthur wet his lips, and Ariadne could only spare the action a nanosecond of attention, before looking back to his eyes. She could feel his breath on her lips again and-

They both jumped and sat up when the door swung open.

"Eames 'ere?" String was looking as wobbly as Ariadne had remembered him being when they'd left him at the pub. He looked blearily from Arthur to Ariadne, apparently oblivious to the tension that he'd intruded on and broken. "No?"

"No." Arthur said flatly, getting up and straightening himself up as if out of habit. "He isn't."

"Oh."

"Goodnight, String."

"G'night."

Arthur shut the door behind him as he left, seeing as the Londoner had left it open. Ariadne suddenly felt very, very sober; even more so when Arthur looked back to her and cleared his throat, apparently searching for words.

She got up, not at all wobbly now, and for a long moment they just looked at each other from opposite sides of the room. Ariadne tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, trying to swallow the lump in her throat and quell the turmoil in the pit of her stomach.

And then, just as she'd plucked up enough courage to say something, Arthur looked away and disappeared to his room. The door clicked shut behind him.

* * *

Ariadne woke up with a headache. Less than she'd expected but more than she'd hoped for; the gentle light coming in through the window of one of Eames' spare rooms seemed harsh and it was certainly unwelcome.

The more she adjusted to being awake, the more she began to notice. She could hear talking from outside, although the tones were hushed; her room was right by the kitchen. Out of habit more than anything, she reached over and poked her chess piece, which toppled off of the bedside table as it was meant to.

She replaced it, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and reaching for a warm, baggy sweatshirt to pull on over her pyjamas. London was colder than she'd hoped it would be.

The minute she stepped out from her room she was confronted with the kitchen and Arthur, sat at the table fully dressed in his usual attire and drinking coffee, with a newspaper blocking Ariadne from view. Eames was sat at the table too, but looking far more casual in a jeans and t-shirt, tilting back his chair as he watched a small television perched on the kitchen counter. He had his back to her.

"...crazy really. You'd think they'd know." Eames shook his head, a frown tugging his lips down at the corners as he inspected the screen – the morning news.

"Maybe they do. But they can't do anything to help it." Arthur muttered from behind the paper.

They both sounded serious enough for Ariadne to get goosebumps.

"What is it?" She asked before she could stop herself, making both of the men look up in surprise. She met Arthur's gaze for a nanosecond only, before he looked down and began to neatly fold his newspaper.

"Guess who's just been pronounced dead?" Eames asked gravely, setting his chair back on all four legs.

"I don't know." Ariadne mumbled, rubbing the back of her neck. Images were flashing through her head – Cobb, Saito, Yusef; someone they all knew.

"Fischer." Arthur muttered after a moment, and Ariadne wondered whether it was because he didn't like seeing her squirm.

He nudged the paper in her direction, where the headline was revelling in its sorrowful words; faking, meaningless things about how tragic it was for Robert Fischer to have fallen in to a coma after an accident on a plane and die, so soon after his father. It had a funeral date.

"It's a cover story." Arthur said simply. "Saito made sure his airline didn't leave a trail – they're saying Fischer was on a private jet, and that it crashed. It coincides with all of us vanishing."

"He's not dead." Ariadne took the paper, unfolding it; she didn't know why her hands were shaking. "We forgot about him. He's alive, he's just-"

"Going to be buried alive?" Eames cut in soberly. "Oh, we know, love. We know."


	7. Chapter 7

**_"Shock", "Horror," I hear you say. Yes, I am indeed alive and writing. Whether any of you are left to read it is an entirely different story, but hey ho, it's my own fault for being so easily distracted._**

**_

* * *

_**

_And I feel like I'm breaking up, and I wanted to stay_  
_Headlights on the hillside, don't take me this way_  
_I don't want you to hold me, I don't want you to pray_  
_This is bigger than us - Bigger Than Us, White Lies_

"We can't just leave him-"

"Ariadne, love, there really isn't anything we can do-"

"It's _our _faults he's down there in the first place-"

"Our faults? Really? I'd like to get rid of that and replace it with _Cobb's _fault – he was the one who made it so that-"

"You guys made the decision to come back for me! If you'd chosen Fischer over me, Cobb and Saito would have woken up anyway, Fischer could do what Saito paid us to make him do and there'd be one less scrawny student in the world!"

Ariadne had discovered that Eames was very competitive and very competent when it came to verbal sparring, and also that he was capable of doing it with people other than Arthur. Stood either side of the kitchen table, Ariadne had her arms folded across her chest, chin jutting and her jaw set, whilst Eames pinched the bridge of his nose, the other hand on his hip.

"Could you imagine the shit I would have gotten off of _him_ if we didn't get you back?" Eames jabbed a finger at Arthur, who had been sat at the table in relative silence ever since Ariadne had thrown the newspaper down in disgust and started off on her rant. The Point Man shot Eames a scathing look for bringing him in to the argument.

"We have to try and get him back. I couldn't live with myself knowing...knowing he's down there and that he's..." Ariadne's throat was very dry.

"Well, _you're _an excellent thief, aren't you? Just what you need in this business – a guilty conscience the size of England. I bet you'd take someone's wallet, feel bad and then give it back." Eames scoffed, but he couldn't quite meet her gaze, turning away to lean against the table and fold his arms. "Arthur, tell her she's being ridiculous. We're not a bloody rescue team."

Ariadne looked to Arthur, suddenly remembering that she was still in her pyjamas and had no makeup on. She didn't let her defiant posture shift, however – Arthur wasn't heartless, surely he would have to agree with her...

"You're unbelievable." She could tell from his expression that he'd already made his decision, and left the kitchen without further comment.

She was dressed in two minutes flat and on her way out of the door.

"Ariadne, wait-"

"No, Arthur," The student rounded on him, her eyes narrowed with the deepest disgust that she could muster. "Fischer's a human being, with emotions and _feelings_, and a life, and relationships and- you'd just let him rot in the ground without batting an eyelid, wouldn't you? _Both _of you!" She added loud enough for Eames to hear from the kitchen.

Arthur blinked at her, his mouth gaping slightly as he tried to find words to make things better. But Ariadne knew what he'd been thinking as they'd talked around the table – he didn't want to save Fischer. He couldn't care less. And as little aversion as Ariadne had had to all the crime she'd been up to recently, she was in no way heartless.

She slammed the door behind her.

When Ariadne came back that evening it was dark, and she slipped through the door with the hope that if she was lucky, the place would be either empty or everyone inside it would be asleep.

Maybe all of her allotted luck in life had run out after being saved from limbo.

"Where the hell have you been?" Arthur had been sat on the sofa, and jumped to his feet as soon as Ariadne came in.

"Who are you, my dad?" Ariadne rolled her eyes, and unimpressed tut forming in the back of her throat as she headed straight for her room. Arthur caught her arm before she had a chance to walk more than a few paces.

"I was worried. You don't know your way around London-"

She shook him off, glaring at the floor. "I'm not a toddler. I managed."

Ariadne could feel his gaze boring in to the side of her face, but she didn't look around. After he'd stopped her, she'd somehow become rooted to the spot. Maybe by his eyes.

"I'm sorry-"

"No you're not." There was no way he was pulling that crap with her. "I saw you. You wouldn't have cared until I started making a fuss. Fischer was just a failed job to you. So, I've been thinking, maybe I'm not cut out for this at all. I was going to wait till morning to tell you..."

She met Arthur's gaze and it was difficult to hold, but she managed it, curling her fists and trying not to let her nails dig in to her palms.

"I'm going home. Now that we know the authorities aren't after us..." Ariadne's gaze dropped, exhausted by the gargantuan effort it took to battle with the way Arthur's eyes were making her stomach twist. "...I don't want to be here anymore."

Because really, what was she doing? Running around with thieves and conmen, pretending to be something that during the course of the day she'd accepted that she wasn't. She was still an architect, yes, but she was a normal one. And she needed to go back to school. Back to normality.

The paused had just been about to reach the "too long to not be awkward" mark when Arthur finally spoke. His tone was level, impassive. "Ariadne...I admire you."

The compliment caught her off guard and she was immediately wary, although she couldn't help her expression softening somewhat. Her hands fell from fists to hanging limp at her sides. "What do you mean?"

"Your humanity." Arthur put his hands in his pockets, tilting his head slightly and letting his gaze drop just as Ariadne looked up again. "After the people you've dealt with and the things you've seen and done. You're still normal. And that, in itself, is extraordinary."

He was smiling slightly and Ariadne was thrown back to the hotel lobby, and oh god, yes, it was definitely worth a shot. The memory was only a flash, but the butterflies that came with it lingered.

"You're definitely better than either of us, sweetheart." Eames had been leaning in the doorway to the kitchen the whole time, and he merely grinned when Ariadne jumped. "So, neither of us will blame you for wanting to go home and leave us nasties behind."

Arthur glanced at Eames, a small frown suddenly tugging at the corner of his mouth. Eames looked back at him with a pleasant, totally innocent and seemingly-oblivious-to-Arthur's-disapproval expression. Their silent conversation lasted just over a second and Ariadne grasped none of it.

"And anyway, I've been thinking about how realistically possible saving Fischer would be." Arthur said quickly, trying to cover up the exchange. "He'll be 6 feet under in a matter of days, most likely in Los Angeles where his father was-"

"Well, that's not exactly right."

Ariadne and Arthur both turned to look at Eames. Arthur was the dictionary definition of unimpressed. "I don't recall asking for your input."

"All I'm saying is, the Fischer mausoleum is here. In England. They're not aborigines, are they? So even though they're an Australian company and family, their roots come back to here." Eames shrugged, looking indulgently smug with his hands in his pockets as he leant against the wall. "So, Fischer will attend his funeral in Los Angeles, and then be flown over here."

A light turned on in Ariadne's brain.

"A mausoleum. A tomb, right? A crypt? We could get in to that. You two would know how. We could-"

"No." Arthur said simply. "It's impractical. And is it worth risking all three of our lives to save Fischer's? You know, he never exactly came across as a nice person...Not to mention, days in limbo could to irreparable damage to his brain. He might be completely out of it before he even touches down in England."

"Saito will pay us all what he originally offered. Maybe more." Ariadne was grinning now; she'd never been much good at coming up with plans, but this one was almost fully formed in her head, like building in dreams. Discovering it, and leaving the details to include themselves. "Browning will take over the company now both of the Fischers are dead, right? He'll do the opposite to dissolving it – Saito won't be able to compete, right, the same as before? Except this isn't inception. It's extracting Fischer from limbo."

Eames had looked up at the possibility of more compensation. "...You know, that could work."

Arthur sighed heavily. "You would say that; if we were in a cartoon you'd have dollar signs for eyes-"

"Pound signs, actually. The pound is stronger than the dollar at the moment-"

"Do I look like I care?"

"Do I care whether you care?"

"Your newfound levels of superficiality and immaturity could be the eighth and ninth wonders of the world-"

"Oh, someone's upping the ante in their comebacks. That was startlingly imaginative for you."

Ariadne cleared her throat and the two men seemed to remember that she was in the room. "So, we're doing this, then? We'll get in touch with Saito and tell him what we're doing-"

"And agree on payment." Eames cut in.

"Yes, Eames. And then we'll get a hold of Yusuf – do you reckon he'll be able to get here? We'll need him to be able to go enough levels down, and we know his sedatives work." Ariadne began pacing, her mind whirring.

"From what I've been able to gather they're cracking down on the supply and distribution of the substances they use in somnancin and the other drugs required for dream sharing. And without those we're out of business." Eames pointed out, although Ariadne could see on his face that he was getting in to the planning as well. Eames enjoyed his work, she knew that. They grinned at each other.

"It should be so easy – who'll disturb us if we're in a mausoleum in the middle of the night? Even if there's as security guard or two..." Ariadne had a thought. "There'll be barely any security if Fischer is in limbo. Will there be any projections at all, if he's not on the specific dream level?"

"The first time we tried to get you out of limbo, the time when we were still on the plane, all the dream levels were deserted." Arthur had fallen silent for a while, so his sudden contribution made both Ariadne and Eames turn to face him with interest; he still didn't sound too sure. "But the second time, in the luggage hold of the other place, there were projections. So it varies, really."

"How usefully inconsistent." Eames sighed. "Well, we'll prepare for either eventuality. We know Fischer's been trained to resist extraction now, unlike last time."

He threw Arthur a pointed look that Arthur didn't catch, because he wasn't looking. He was staring at the floor, his eyes narrowed slightly in thought. Ariadne felt her lips quiver.

"You don't think it's a good idea?"

"It's a good plan." Arthur said slowly, each word weighed and measured with the precision that came so naturally to him. "I'm thinking about whether it's worth the risk. If we get caught, or if any of us get stuck in limbo..."

"What's life without a little risk?" Eames chipped in, rolling his totem up and down his fingers.

"For me? I'm fine with risks. I've seen all of the things I've wanted, done almost all of the things I've wanted to do..." Arthur glanced at Ariadne and she got the message.

"I haven't done too badly either, you know. If the plan failed, I'd have still seen my fair share of the world." She folded her arms, her weight shifting over one hip as she watched Arthur. "And working with such outstanding professionals as yourselves, what could possibly go wrong?"

"She has a point." Eames smirked.

Arthur sighed. "Well, look at what happened on the last job."

"This is going to be a million times easier than inception." Ariadne pointed out. "But it'll still take planning. And a Point Man. We need you, Arthur – and I know how much you love working on jobs."

She thought back to all the time they spent together preparing for the Fischer job, the countless dream-hours they passed going over different techniques. She'd seen how animated and captivated he'd been, commenting on all the little details and technicalities that he appreciated so much.

She met his eyes, and in their dark depth she could see him remembering too.

"Well, we don't necessarily need _you, _per se." Eames pointed out. "But I doubt you'd let our little Architect here run off in to danger without you, being the chivalrous knight in a bespoke suit that you are, and all."

The comment was loaded and Ariadne didn't like it; Arthur sat up a little straighter and something in his jaw tightened. An age of glaring seemed to pass, but then a blunt "Fine. I'll do it." Made Ariadne grin.

"Thank you Arthur. I'll just go and ring Saito now...shall I ring the company headquarters or the number he left..." Ariadne almost skipped in to the kitchen to locate the wireless.

"...Oi! You're not using my landline, that'll cost a fortune!" Eames followed, scowling.

When Ariadne lay down to try and sleep that night, she felt an odd, warm sense of accomplishment. She knew that neither Arthur nor Eames were on board the rescue mission because of Fischer's plight – but she couldn't blame them for that. That wasn't the way they worked, and she was starting to accept it.

She, however, felt perfectly comfortable in being self-indulgent about all of the good karma that would hopefully one day head her way. Surely it'd be enough to last her a year or so, which would be nice.

After an hour or so of staring at the cracks in the ceiling, she rolled out of bed and got a notebook from her back stowed beneath her bed. She began sketching mazes.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Yo-diggidy yo guys. Sorry I've been such a recluse for a while – familial shit is going down, and I'm caught in the middle. Hope you enjoy this chapter!**_

* * *

This was going to be so much easier than Inception. Ariadne was sure of it.

Having something to do was a blessing for all three of them (Yusuf wasn't able to join them until the last minute, but Ariadne kept him updated on dreamscapes and the plans in general over the phone and by email); it meant that whenever someone needed a break – be it from a person (often in Arthur and Eames' case) or just for some time alone – they could excuse themselves and while away the time doing what they did best.

And, rightly or wrongly, Ariadne was starting to look to them like family, even if the relations weren't specified.

"Right, tonight we're having takeout."

Eames came in from the kitchen, frowning as he blew on the mug of tea he was warming his hands around. "Is that a hint I should take about my cooking?"

"It probably wasn't meant to be, but you can take it as one." Arthur suggested dryly from where he was sat on the floor. In front of him was a large whiteboard on a stand, so full of writing (in bright pink board pen – Eames had insisted it had been the only colour he could find, to Arthur's discomfort and Ariadne's amusement) that Arthur had to sit cross legged on the floor to be able to finish the write-up of what was simply being referred to as "The Plan".

"It's not that," Ariadne insisted, rummaging through a pile of takeaway menus on the coffee table. "But I'm a student, remember? Takeaways are an integral part of my diet."

She ordered the food as fluidly as if she were fluent in Chinese.

"Apparently it has to get picked up in twenty minutes? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of ordering in?" Ariadne put the phone down, frowning.

"Looking further in to the term 'takeaway' solves your problem, there." Eames sipped his tea, checking his watch. "I'll go out and get it. I need to pick up a few ingredients for the Somnacin, anyway. They should have arrived by now."

Yusuf wasn't able to fly in till the last minute, a few hours before the actual job itself, so Eames was having to take instructions from him over the phone on how to make the drugs necessary for the job. The kitchen had been turned in to something resembling a chemistry lab, and Eames was having the substances he required posted from Yusuf to a different address, just to be safe. Apparently, the different chemicals and components were becoming harder and harder to come by, even on the black market.

"Alright. Be careful." Ariadne's usual farewell was met with a small smile and salute from Eames.

"Wouldn't dream of being otherwise." He shrugged on a jacket and left the apartment, the door clicking shut softly behind him.

Ariadne was suddenly aware that this was the first time she and Arthur had been left completely alone in a few days and the silence was suddenly profound, only punctuated by the squeak of Arthur's board marker.

"...how's it going?" She asked after a moment, sitting a little straighter on the sofa. "Written everything up?"

"Almost done." If Arthur felt awkward in any way, he didn't show it, and Ariadne appreciated it. It gave her more room to try and dispel her own discomfort. He finished writing with a flourish, putting the cap back on the pen and slipping it back in to his pocket, standing up and taking a step back to run his eyes over his work. He glanced at Ariadne, only a quick flick of his gaze, but it hit her like lightning. "How're those sketches coming?"

"I'm mostly finished. Only adding details now, really." She quickly snatched up her sketchpad and pencil from the coffee table, flipping through it and finding a page she could get scribbling on. Arthur had such an overpowering work mentality, it often made her feel incredibly lazy. "Playing around with carpets, wallpapers. That sort of stuff. Considering the fact there'll hopefully be very little resistance, a lot of this is just architecture practice for me, in a way."

Arthur nodded, putting both hands in the pockets of his slacks and pausing for a moment, before he spoke again.

"You want to be the one to go in to limbo, don't you?"

He was right, of course. But the question still caught her off guard – she hadn't spoken about wanting to be the one to get Fischer out of limbo to anyone, although maybe her intentions had been obvious when they were drafting the original plan.

"Yeah," She coughed up after a moment, clearing her throat and continuing with a couple of nods. "Yes. I do."

Arthur inclined his head a little to the side as he looked at her, and Ariadne felt, with a sinking feeling, that she was under some sort of intensive examination.

"W-what do you think about that?" She had to break the silence, her pencil having stopped moving against her sketchpad long ago – she started tapping it.

"Well," Arthur was using his professional voice; he was in work mode. He would hold nothing back. "Quite frankly I think it's a little ridiculous."

* * *

"-with Cobb, to get Fischer back in the first place!"

"Oh, because that went so well, didn't it?"

"Well, the first time you tried to get me out of limbo it didn't go to plan either!"

Eames opened the door and was hit by a wall of sound. He blinked for a moment, trying to get to grips with what was going on in his sitting room. Arthur and Ariadne were stood in the middle of the room, their faces inches apart as they shouted at each other (although Ariadne had to be on tip-toe to achieve this).

"What's going on?" Eames asked, still standing like a dummy in the doorway with his arms full of Chinese food.

Both of their heads whipped around to look at him, and then suddenly the wall of sound was being roared in his direction.

* * *

"Right, now we've calmed down a little, explain to me what your little squabble was about." It was hard for Eames not to sound patronising as he viewed the young man and woman sat opposite him across the kitchen table.

It'd taken all of his diplomatic skills to coax the two of them out of their shouting match. Then, he made them eat the food that he'd bought before it went cold, and sat them down at the table as if he were a headmaster diffusing a conflict between two feuding students.

"I want to be the one to go in to limbo and get Fischer-" Ariadne stated simply, only to be overridden by Arthur, who was leaning forward with his elbows on the table and his hands massaging his temples.

"Which is completely ridiculous, isn't it? She's the least trained out of the three of us, the youngest-"

"That doesn't mean I'm not capable!" Ariadne slammed her hands down on the table, standing up. Arthur shot her a disparaging glance; Ariadne turned to Eames. "I don't need protecting, or shielding from anything. How does he expect me to learn when I'm not allowed to-"

"Are you even so sure this is what you want to learn? You still have very little idea of how dangerous all of this is. You're still caught up in the initial excitement of it all. Think of Cobb – think of Mal. You can't comprehend the risks, so don't pretend you can." Arthur set his chin on his hand, giving Ariadne a scathingly patronising look; Eames recognised when he'd gone past his angry stage and in to barbs and sarcasm. Ariadne flinched.

"How can you say that?" Her voice was an angry whisper, trying to mask the hurt that was all too visible in her eyes. "After everything that's happened?"

Arthur seemed to realise that he'd crossed the line, but he looked back at Ariadne without any visible remorse – back pedalling would be useless, he knew.

"I was there through the entire Inception job, and if that isn't a prime example of what this business is all about and what can go wrong, then I don't know what is." Ariadne looked as if she might hit Arthur, but she seemed to think better of it, leaving the kitchen in a pattering of angry feet. There was the sound of her bedroom door slamming.

"She's impossible." Arthur sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes.

"You've really outdone yourself this time, Arthur." Eames muttered in return, a frown twisting his lips down in the corners as he went to follow Ariadne. Arthur got to his feet, grabbing the Forger's arm.

"You know why I don't want her too deeply involved."

They exchanged a long, meaningful look. Eames took in the lines of stress worked in to Arthur's forehead, the way his brow was furrowed.

"That doesn't necessarily mean I agree with you. If she wants to do this, who are we to say no?" Eames' tone was almost wistful, and Arthur had no reply.

* * *

There was a soft knocking at Ariadne's door, and she quickly sat up and wiped her eyes with the heels of her palms. She was sat cross-legged on the guest bed, playing with one of her scarves. "Hello?"

"It's not Arthur, so don't throw anything." Eames' voice came from the other side of the door, inviting confidence and saturated with comfort. He was good at what he did; Ariadne had to give him that. "Want to talk?"

"Not particularly." She sniffled.

"I'll take that as a yes." Ariadne couldn't help a begrudging smile as he opened the door and came inside, sitting on the end of her bed with a small smile. The way he was holding his head and the look in his eyes made Ariadne feel that she was going to have to be the first one to talk.

She twisted the soft material of her scarf around her fist and sighed. "I don't get it. One minute we're fine; close friends. Mucking around even – although not since we really got working," She smiled wryly to herself, watching the silky scarf sift through her fingers "you know how he is. And then, all of a sudden, I'm some irritating kid he seems to want to get rid of."

"Have you ever considered," Eames' tone was delicate – the voice Ariadne had heard him use when picking apart the relationship between Fischer and his father "the reasons _why _Arthur doesn't want you involved in all of this? We are technically criminals, you know."

"He thinks I don't know anything, that I'm too young to do something so life-endangering, that I'm oblivious to how serious this all is..." Ariadne tucked her knees up beneath her chin, frowning. "I'm not. I know all the risks – I was the one who picked Cobb's brain and found out what he did to Mal. I saw him come to terms with that. I know what can happen when this goes wrong."

"So does Arthur. And it's not something you'd wish upon someone you care about, is it?" Eames cocked an eyebrow. "No one wants to watch someone they feel for put in danger, fighting for their lives... or paying for mistakes that they tried to warn them about, whatever they may have been. Not many people even like thinking about it."

Ariadne didn't understand the small smile settled in the corner of his mouth. "What is it you're getting at, exactly?"

"You know what. I know there wasn't much room for talking after the Inception job went downhill...but that doesn't mean Arthur hasn't described your liaisons in the hotel lobby in at least seven different ways since he got here." Eames smirked as he got to his feet, putting his hands in his pockets. "Don't be an oblivious Mary Sue, Ariadne. You're better than that."

"I am _not _a Mary Sue!" Ariadne squeaked, affronted. Although, the outburst was merely covering up for the fact Eames had given her something to think about.

* * *

You couldn't see many stars from the roof of Eames' building, and Arthur had been trying for a while. Maybe he was being irrational – Ariadne wasn't as helpless as he was making her out to be. He knew that. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes as he leant against the railings. He knew Ariadne wasn't ignorant of the risks, and she was incredibly good at what she did – she'd taken to dream sharing so quickly...

But so had Mal, hadn't she? _And look how that turned out._

The fire-escape door clunked behind him, and Arthur quickly found something to have been looking at for the past half an hour. London twinkled sympathetically at him.

The door clunked open, slamming, – Arthur didn't turn to look, but he could tell Ariadne had barged the stiff door with her shoulder and it'd flown up and caught her by surprise – and then quietly clicked shut. There were a few hesitant footsteps, and then

"Hey."

Arthur glanced up for a moment and then away again, as if he hadn't heard her coming. "Hi."

She leant against the railings beside him, but whereas his eyes were firmly on the Thames, he could feel hers boring in to the side of her face.

"I'm sorry I flipped out on you earlier." She said after a moment, her tone as tentative as someone treading on ice. "I overreacted. I'm not as much of a wizened professional as I like to think I am sometimes." She put her hands in her back pockets, looking at the floor. "I'm not in any position to be questioning your opinions on all of this-"

"No, no._ I'm_ sorry." Arthur turned to face her; his hands slipped in to his pockets as he leant his back against the railings, one leg picked up slightly with his foot resting on the bars. It was like they were mirroring each other. "I'm...being over-protective, and...it's... it's really counter-productive to what we're trying to do, so I-"

Ariadne stopped him by reaching up on tip-toe to press a hesitant kiss to Arthur's cheek. She wobbled slightly as she leant up, putting her hands on his forearms to steady herself as she stepped back. "Uhm, I know. I mean, I know why you're over-protective. I think." She bobbed her head once, giving him a small half-smile, before heading back over to the fire-escape.

Confused, and struggling to find the words to voice this confusion, Arthur could only blink as he watched her open the door and shut it carefully behind her.


	9. Chapter 9

**_Hey guys...so, we've reached the job. Exciting, right? Only about...two more chapters, I'd say at a guesstimate. And then an epilogue, I think. Rejoice, complain, do whatever you want, but enjoy doing it. :)_**

* * *

"Eames is picking Yusuf up from Heathrow. We'll be going soon."

Ariadne looked up; she'd been leant against the kitchen counter, head bent low over her sketchpad as she doodled. She quickly flipped it shut. "I'm ready."

Arthur was leaning in the doorway, hands in his pockets and legs crossed very neatly for such a relaxed position. Ariadne wondered how long he'd been stood there – she'd been off in a world of her own.

Things had been a lot easier between them since the chaste kiss on the roof. They seemed to understand each other more without having needed to talk about it in depth. Ariadne was glad of this – she didn't want to talk about anything until the job was over. Then they'd have all the time in the world to talk. Amongst other things.

"Do you think it'll be good?"

"W-what?" Ariadne felt a blush rise in her cheeks at the inappropriate timing of Arthur's question.

"The job. Do you think it will go smoothly?" Arthur reiterated, the amused set of his lips making Ariadne think that maybe he could read minds now, as well as everything else.

"Well, yeah. I mean, it's fairly straightforward, isn't it?" Ariadne nodded, rippling her short nails along the cover of the sketchpad. "We might not have Cobb, but you, Eames and Yusuf are all exceedingly good at your jobs."

"So are you." His eyes were warm and dark and comforting, like coffee or chocolate.

Ariadne shrugged, bobbing her head modestly. She hadn't done it since she was a little girl, but she felt the urge to hide behind her hair. "I'm learning."

"And you want to learn more?"

"I highly doubt I'd ever be able to go back." Ariadne couldn't help but return the smile he was giving her with his eyes. She could tell the subject still wasn't his favourite, but he was coming to terms with the idea.

"There's nothing quite like it." Ariadne recognised Arthur quoting himself from their first proper conversation, and their smiles grew, and from them came soft laughter.

"Doesn't that seem like a lifetime ago?" Ariadne mused. One hand went to her pocket, and from it she pulled out the bishop that she always had on her but had grown out of tipping, as of late. She placed it on the counter and knocked it over, and as it rolled over the edge Arthur's hand shot out to catch it, but Ariadne's beat him to it with a smirk.

The movement had brought him in a lot closer than he'd been stood before in a few silent steps, and as she held up the chess piece in victory, Ariadne found she was struggling to breathe evenly. It was a wonderful, heady feeling.

He reached up, as if to take the bishop, but his fingers just ended up curling around hers. Whilst her eyes were fixed firmly on his, his were travelling almost indulgently across her face, bringing her out in a blush that felt like her cheeks were glowing.

When his hand brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek she let her eyes fall shut, and when she felt his breath on her lips she was sure her heart stuttered.

The phone rang.

Ariadne let out an audible whoosh of breath, her eyes flying open. Arthur was glowering at the phone in the cradle on the wall, and Ariadne thought his animosity towards it was well-deserved. He glanced back at her, and they both smiled, slightly sheepish.

He went to answer it, and Ariadne put her totem back in her pocket, feeling her heart rate return to normal with something like regret as she put her sketchpad and pencil on the kitchen counter.

"That was Eames." Arthur said as he hung up "Yusuf's flight has just landed, so they'll both be here soon, and from here we're going straight to the hotel."

The plan was to set up in a hotel closer to the Fischer mausoleum for convenience, although they were going to execute the actual saving of Fischer in the mausoleum itself.

"Well, my bag is packed." Ariadne smiled slightly. "Forty-eight hours and everything will be all wrapped up. Fischer will be back – God knows how he'll explain coming back from the dead – he'll break up his father's empire so Saito will be happy, and Eames will therefore get paid so he'll be happy, and we'll be..."

She paused.

"We'll be...?" Arthur echoed, raising an eyebrow.

Ariadne swallowed, exhaled "Happy. Doing whatever we want to do."

Arthur stared at her for a moment, with the flicker of a smile hesitating on his lips. Ariadne knew he didn't want to be too optimistic, not before a job.

After a long moment he finally spoke, talking over his shoulder as he left the room "We should probably meet Eames downstairs."

* * *

The car was dark and warm, and Ariadne had her feet up on the dashboard and was snuggled in a dark parka coat that was possibly the most comfortable thing in the world. At this rate, she wouldn't need any sedatives to get to sleep. Yusuf was in the back, fiddling around with the last adjustments to the somnacin, humming softly to himself. It was a surprisingly comforting and much-appreciated noise.

The inky gloom on the other side of the car windows was complete – the cemetery was in a surprisingly secluded area on the outskirts of London, and the black car Eames had produced (he hadn't said where from no one had wanted to ask) was parked in a field around the back of the grand churchyard.

Ariadne could feel her head nodding on to her chest and a yawn threatening in the back of her throat when a white face appeared in the window beside her. She barely stifled a scream, until she realised the face belonged to Eames, who was smirking. Seething, she opened the car door, hoping to catch him with it. He hopped lithely out of the way as she got out.

"Scared you did I, sweetheart?"

"You absolute ass!" She swung in a weak attempt at punching his arm, but that only seemed to draw more mirth from him.

"You two really are the height of professionalism, aren't you?" Arthur's voice, a lot lower and a lot closer than Ariadne had expected "It's not as if we're trying to be subtle, here."

She turned, suddenly worried to have disappointed him so early on, after the arguments it took to convince him to let her help. _She _was supposed to be the one going in to limbo, after all. But luckily, if Arthur was annoyed it wasn't to the extent where he wanted to dwell on it – he was helping Yusuf out of the car with the PASIV device and the vials of somnacin.

"Security is taken care of." Eames murmured, putting his hands in his pockets and rocking back and forth on his heels. He seemed very at home. "There's no chance of us being interrupted this evening."

"...taken care of?" Ariadne asked, unsure of whether or not she wanted to know the answer.

"Unconscious and immobilised." Eames blinked, wide-eyed in mock obliviousness to what Ariadne had been implying "What else could I have done?"

"You have a gun down the back of your trousers." Ariadne grumbled. Her assumption had been a justified one.

"Come on you two. We're moving." Arthur threw Ariadne a torch which she barely caught, before heading back in to the graveyard, Yusuf following close behind.

Ariadne turned on her torch, making sure to keep its light pointing downwards and sharing a glance with Eames "Am I in trouble?"

"No. Arthur's just in 'Work Mode'. You'd be lucky to even get a glimpse of human emotion out of him now."

* * *

The Fischer mausoleum stood tall and foreboding at the back of the cemetery, as if keeping a watchful eye over anyone who dared to walk through the tombstones.

"I don't like this." Eames muttered, looking out over the deserted cemetery and occasionally checking his watch "I don't like this at all."

"What," Arthur was shielding the light of his torch from prying eyes with his hands, so it let out just enough of a glow for Yusuf to pick the padlock "is body-snatching one of the few crimes not in your repertoire?"

Eames deemed this undeserving of a response, instead focusing on ignoring a particularly creepy stone angel that appeared to be staring at him "Hey, did you ever watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"

"...Yeah?" Ariadne frowned. She'd been jumping up and down on the spot lightly, wanting to stay lose. All of her nerve-endings felt like they were tingling – they were breaking in to a prestigious building, with the intent of unearthing the dead. If this wasn't exciting, what was?

"Doesn't this look like something out of Buffy?"

"I suppose."

"I always fancied myself something of a Spike."

"If that's the case, why do you look so creeped out?"

The lock clicked open and Ariadne let out a small sigh of relief; from here on in, all the hard stuff was going to be done in dreaming. At least that way she'd get to lie down.

The four black-clad figures slipped inside the mausoleum, turning on torches and shutting the doors behind them. The smell of dust and death and mould quickly clogged up Ariadne's nose; she grimaced, holding a hand over her nose and mouth as she flashed her torch over the stone coffins and catacombs.

"Which one is Fischer?" Eames asked, picking idly at a spider web until its creator scuttled in to view. Ariadne saw him back off quickly and tried not to smirk.

The darkness was almost absolute – Ariadne's torch seemed ineffective against the murky depths of the ancient building. Names etched in to stone and plaques loomed out at her, making her shiver.

"I don't know, but I really don't want to end up looking in the wrong one." She mumbled; a hand on the small of her back made her jump.

"It'll be the most recently disturbed one." Arthur's tone was still business and business only, but his touch was comforting "Check for where the dust has been disturbed."

They began searching. It was Yusuf that located the correct coffin; its lid hadn't yet been secured. Whilst Eames and Arthur lifted the lid, Ariadne helped Yusuf prepare the silver briefcase.

"As I've said," Yusuf took the vials of sedative from his jacket pocket "they're putting restrictions on the substances I make this with, trying to prevent any illegal activity."

He gave Eames and Arthur a pointed look, which they ignored, pretending to struggle with the lid of the coffin.

"So," Yusuf continued "If we lose anyone in limbo, there will be no going back for them, do you understand?"

Ariadne glanced up from the floor and her gaze immediately found Arthur's. His dark eyes were impenetrable, but Ariadne knew by the very fact they'd both looked at each other that he was thinking the same thing she was.

"We'll just have to be extra careful, that's all." Eames said dismissively as he and Arthur propped the lid of the coffin up against the wall.

Ariadne stood up to peer tentatively in to the glorified box. Fischer looked pale, deathly pale, but fresh, too glowing to be dead in spite of his lack of pulse or breath. His face shone white in the half-light. Sleeping – forever, if they hadn't come to help him. Alone and unaware of the cold, stony darkness all around him.

Arthur stood beside her, also looking in to the coffin. Shaking her fingers free of her coat's too-long sleeves, Ariadne's fingers brushed against the back of Arthur's hand. After a moment his hand closed around hers, just for a brief few seconds.

"Are you two hooking up or what?"

Ariadne turned around, alarmed at Eames' rather...direct line of questioning; only to find him knelt on the floor beside Yusuf, offering her an IV.

"Yes." Arthur answered, letting go of Ariadne's hand and taking the proffered IV, turning to attach it to Fischer.

Ariadne walked over to Eames, sitting down cross-legged beside him "Hey."

"Hey." Eames glanced up from where he was setting the times on the PASIV device "You alright? Don't tell me you're getting apprehensive now?"

"No. Not at all." Ariadne shook her head, rolling up the right-hand sleeve of her coat "What would be the point in feeling nervous now?"

"No point at all." Eames agreed, but that didn't mean he ignored the tension in her voice. His own tone turned comforting, and he laid a heavy, warm hand on her shoulder "It's good, this plan of yours. Trust yourself."

Ariadne nodded, and from the little she could see of Eames' face in the gloom, he was smiling encouragingly – she managed a weak smile back. It was alright for him - he'd done things like this a hundred times over – but this was Ariadne's first plan. This had been her idea. And whilst she'd been hit with a begrudgingly self-righteous wave of assertion as she looked at Fischer – she was saving a life, bringing back the dead – she also had to admit that she was risking life too. Not just hers, but Yusuf, Eames and Arthur's.

"If I could do this all on my own, I would." She whispered, almost to herself.

"But you don't have to." It was Arthur who spoke, having finished wiring up Fischer to the silver suitcase. He caught Ariadne's gaze for a moment, and then looked down.

"Well," Eames said a short while later once they were all attached to the PASIV "bottoms up."

He pushed the button, and it depressed with a soft _hush._

As Ariadne tried to find a comfortable position on the cold, stone floor, she tried her hardest to memorise the feeling. It would hopefully be the same once she woke up.


	10. Chapter 10

**_Hey guys :} hope you all enjoy this chapter, considering it is rather action-packed and exciting and all that._**

* * *

The country road was tight and winding, the slick black car moving like a prowling cat through the olive grove. It was little more than a blur in the darkness.

"Leave the stereo alone." Arthur slapped at Eames' hand, a small, well-used frown line forming between his eyebrows.

Eames raised an eyebrow but shrugged off the point man's usual work mentality touchiness "Yusuf and Ariadne have overshot a little bit, haven't they? I thought they were supposed to be in the car."

"So did I." Arthur's voice was tight.

_Ah, _Eames thought, _So that would explain the touchiness. _The forger glanced to the back seat, where a multitude of assorted firearms were stacked at the ready, and he couldn't help but grin "Ooooh."

"Call them." Arthur snapped, pulling a small, sleek cell phone out of his pocket and shoving it at Eames "Both of them. Hopefully they'll be together."

The city was looming ahead of them, Mediterranean and in tones of white and black thanks to the light of the moon. Eames decided it would be best not to argue with Arthur, with the mood that he was in, so he scrolled through Arthur's contacts and called the number under 'Yusuf', putting the conversation on loud speaker.

"Where are you?"

"Just outside the city. I have all the PASIV stuff...the projections seem reasonably friendly." Yusuf seemed fairly relaxed; there wasn't a lot of background noise, either – the city might not have been as busy as they'd been expecting.

"For now." Eames hummed, rubbing his thumbnail over his bottom lip "Fischer is trained to deter extractors, remember."

Arthur dealt with a particularly treacherous bend like an expert, not even coming close to careering down the short ravine on to the turf of the olive grove.

"How about deterring a rescue team?" Yusuf asked hopefully.

"We'll see. Is Ariadne with you?" Eames glanced at Arthur, watching for the point man's reaction.

"No." Yusuf frowned "I thought she'd be with you."

"So did we." Eames sighed, rubbing his forehead; he saw Arthur's knuckles turn white as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel "We'll come pick you up and then go architect hunting."

Eames hung up and Arthur put his foot down on the accelerator.

Yusuf was waiting by the entrance to the city, leaning against open gates with sandy walls towering either side of it. He had to get in the car quickly; it was difficult to squash in to the back alongside all of the firearms that he himself had dreamt up, and Arthur didn't seem to want to slow down.

"Relax, we'll find her." Eames' words of comfort were met with a sceptical snort.

"You know she has a knack for getting in to trouble."

"Isn't that one of the requirements for being on this team?"

"I'm really not in the mood-"

"Okay, okay!" Eames put his hands up in defeat "But just keep in mind that she's a grown girl, she can take care of herself."

* * *

Ariadne decided she liked this city. The spicy smell drifting from the market stalls either side of her was relaxing, and the cool night breze kept the naturally warm air at bay. It was almost enough to keep her calm, despite the fact she knew she was in the completely wrong place.

Despite the small stab of panic that spiked upwards every time her heart beat, she walked slowly down the street, skimming past the local projections that made her look awfully pale in comparison to their golden tans. Ariadne was wearing sandals, loose linen trousers and an equally baggy linen top, with a belt tied around her middle and almost giving her boyish figure hips. She'd never attempted to change her clothes whilst dreaming before, but what she was wearing seemed annoyingly un-businesslike.

The others had to be close by, somewhere in the city. And they had to be looking for her. Logically, she thought, it couldn't be long until they ran in to each other.

She saw a man who looked like Yusuf from behind, but when she hurried over and put a hand on his shoulder she realised she was mistaken.

"Sorry. Thought you were someone I..."

The man glanced at Ariadne in annoyance and hurried away. Ariadne frowned, her brow furrowing – were the projections aware of her presence being abnormal? Perhaps, subconsciously (if projections were really conscious in the first place, bearing in mind that they were a part of someone's conscious...ooh, that made her brain hurt) they could tell she was alien to this place, without her having done anything to alter the dream. She watched the man hurry over to a girl who Ariadne presumed was his daughter, who had been admiring a stall selling tropical flowers. He swept her up in to his arms, carrying her away and shooting Ariadne a scathing look over his shoulder.

"Ariadne?"

Her name came from the other end of the street and she turned, seeing a sleek black car; Arthur had half gotten out of the driver's side, holding on to the car door and scanning the sea of milling pedestrians for her.

"I'm here!" She waved, hurrying through the market crowd, which was becoming steadily larger and larger.

She reached the car, stumbling slightly as she had to push between two women haggling over fruit. Arthur was there, steadying her with his hands on her shoulders, but only briefly. She didn't get a chance to even look at him properly before he was getting back in the car.

"Get in. We'll find somewhere to go down another level."

"Glad you could join us, love." Eames called conversationally as Ariadne walked past his side of the car. She scowled, aiming a playful swipe at his head through the open window.

As she slid in to what little room was left in the back she asked "Aren't we even going to look for Fischer here first?"

"I thought we agreed we were going straight to limbo." Arthur manoeuvred the car with a completely unsurprising amount of skill, turning it around and heading back in to the broader, less crowded streets "Fischer would've woken up by now if he was on any of the higher levels."

Ariadne sighed – he had a point. She leant back in her seat as they flew silently through the streets, her eyes shut. They pulled in to a sandy courtyard of a large, mansion-esque house, getting out of the car, which had been turned silver by the moonlight. Eames and Arthur both reached in to the back, grabbing their preferred guns and scanning the balconies of the house out of habit more than anything. Yusuf was holding the PASIV device to his chest, a bag slung over his shoulder containing his sedatives.

They walked through the house, Arthur and Eames sweeping through the rooms with guns in their hands; no one else was in the building. They chose a spacious sitting room, setting up quickly. Ariadne busied herself with fastening the shutters on the large, floor-to-ceiling windows that covered one wall of the room. They were bullet-proof, no doubt.

"Yusuf, you'll need to barricade this room. The projections all seem pretty friendly right now, but things could change at the drop of a hat." Eames was saying as he lay down on a plump velvet chaise, rolling up one sleeve "If you set the explosives in the corners of the room we'll get a decent kick without you being covered in gore-"

"I know." Yusuf rummaged in his bag and held up a small vial to the light, before loading its contents in to the PASIV "I might be relatively new to espionage, but I've caught on quickly."

Ariadne went to the PASIV, grabbed a cable and settled herself in an armchair, struggling to relax. She looked up and saw Arthur sat on another armchair opposite her; their eyes met for a flickering moment before he looked away, turning to Eames.

"Will there be much resistance down there, do you think?"

"We can only hope." Eames smirked slightly as he shut his eyes, not specifying what eventuality he was hoping for.

* * *

There was resistance. Lots of it.

"Keep your head down!" Arthur was beside her, crouched beneath the desk, but he had to shout to be heard over the gunfire that was rattling and shattering the windows of the office skyscraper.

Every time he sat up to shoot over the desk, Ariadne's heart was in her mouth and she had to press her palms to the underside of the desk to stop herself from sitting up too – as if she'd be much help; Arthur had one hand bunched in the shoulder of her jacket, keeping her down, out of harm's way. Eames was nowhere to be seen – but the dream hadn't collapsed, and this dream was his.

"We're going to have to-" Ariadne stifled a scream as bullets rained against the walls of the cubicle they were hidden to the left of "make a run for it. We're going to have to make a run for it!"

"Where?" Arthur ducked beneath the desk again so that he could reload; their faces were inches apart, but the electricity coursing through Ariadne's veins was made of fear at that moment. A pencil pot on the desk to the right of theirs exploded.

"There's an elevator, that way and to the right. And stairs beside it." Ariadne knew the building; this might have been Eames' dream, but she knew the layout like the back of her hand.

"We'll take the elevator. Climb out in to the elevator shaft and head to the roof-"

"Arthur," Ariadne grabbed his arm, shaking it.

"-from there we'll find another way back in to the building-"

"We need to find Eames!"

Arthur paused, as if only just remembering that Eames was meant to be with them. Then he nodded "Right. But first, we need to get out of here."

"Three, two," Ariadne grabbed Arthur's hand, waiting for some sort of signal that they should go.

Something in Arthur's gut instinct or his natural talent for doing these things must have kicked in, because he had to wait for the right moment. When it came – "_One!"_ – he pulled Ariadne upright and they were flying down the room, weaving in and out of cubicles with Arthur shooting over his shoulder. Stacks of papers exploded as bullets ripped through them, and Ariadne didn't dare look behind her, not even to get an idea of the projections' numbers.

They turned down a corridor to the right and, just as Ariadne had said, there was an elevator. They ducked in to it and the doors shut just as several suited projections ran in to view. Ariadne slumped against the mirrored wall, breathing a sigh of relief and raising her eyes to the ceiling, but Arthur took hold of her by the shoulders, checking her over.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, no – I'm fine." Ariadne grabbed his hands, holding them still "Arthur, I'm alright. Really."

He ignored her, still looking for some sign of injury; she wasn't fine until he deemed her to be so.

"Arthur, we need to find Eames." She said sharply, giving him a small shake.

He seemed to hear her this time, and he nodded, reloading his gun once more as they reached their floor "Be ready to run."

The doors slid open to reveal Eames, looking cool and nonchalant with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder "Oh, hello. Nice of you to turn up."

"We could say the same to you." Ariadne huffed, but hugged him anyway. In the same moment she looked to the stairs, expecting to hear projections on them at any moment "Let's move."

"We need to get to the conference room." Arthur headed down the corridor, and Ariadne hastened to follow him "It's on this floor, isn't it?"

They walked in a line, Arthur leading, Ariadne in the middle and Eames bringing up the rear. Once again, Ariadne had the guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach that she _should _be searching for Fischer – but as Arthur had said on the previous level, if he'd been in any state shallower than limbo he would have woken up by now. They passed empty, glass-walled offices and polished, un-used staff lounges; Ariadne thought the building was beautiful. It was a shame that the majority of the floor below had been shattered by a barrage of bullets.

They rounded a corner, on to the corridor where the conference room was, and projections were stood in front of them.

"Run!" Arthur flung out an arm to stop Ariadne walking past him; the three of them turned back the way they had come, running.

"You two find a way to loop around back to the conference room. I'll give our friends a bit of a run around." Eames decided as they reached a crossroad of corridors, taking his gun down from over his shoulder.

Ariadne blanched. There had to be at least twenty projections chasing them down – Eames , as good as he was, going up against twenty men "You can't-"

"I have full faith in you, Eames." Arthur grabbed Ariadne by the arm, pulling her after him as they continued running against her will.

"Arthur, I'm touched." Eames called over his shoulder, and Ariadne could hear the smirk in his voice even though she couldn't see it; she and Arthur rounded a corner and then began to descend a flight of stairs.

"He has no chance!" Ariadne grabbed Arthur's arm – partly to stop herself from stumbling, partly to pull him back "We have to help-"

"I've known Eames a lot longer than you have – he'll be enjoying himself, don't worry." Arthur didn't seem to notice Ariadne tugging on his sleeve "Besides, you're more likely to get hurt back there than he is, and I..._we_ can't risk that. We have to keep going."

Ariadne had to concede defeat; she flinched at the thunderous sound of gunfire hot on their heels, and suddenly she wasn't all that eager to go back anymore.

They were now on the corridor beneath the conference room they needed to get to, heading to the stairs at the other end so they could get back to the right hallway which by then would hopefully be free of projections.

The sound of bullets had died away and they slowed their pace to a cautious walk, Arthur leading the way with his Glock 19; Ariadne realised she still hadn't let go of his arm. She didn't feel particularly inclined to even now they were in relative safety.

As they reached the stairs that would lead them to the conference room Arthur paused, listening for sounds of a possible scuffle above them. It was silent.

"C'mon." He began to edge slowly up the stairs; Ariadne was so close behind him she could possibly have fit inside his waistcoat.

The corridor was empty, and the door to the conference room was in sight. Eames (if he could manage it) was to set the explosives beneath them. Ariadne wanted to break in to a nervous run, but her grip on Arthur's arm kept her steady, as if he were an anchor. In her pocket, she fisted her hand around her golden chess piece.

Just as they reached the door a projection appeared at the end of the corridor, raised a gun and fired.

* * *

Arthur dragged Ariadne in to the conference room; he shut the door behind him, entering the locking code on the keypad set in the doorframe. The sound of metal whirring and clicking made him breathe a sigh of relief. He looked to Ariadne.

She was sat with her back against the wall, eyes wide, chest heaving. Arthur wasn't sure why, but she'd put her hands over her ears.

"Ariadne, the bullet didn't touch you." he sounded insulted – as if he'd have let it – but his voice was soothing as he knelt beside her, taking her hands away from her face and holding them.

He had to admit, for a moment he'd been scared. But it was his job to fear the worst, prepare for it, and deal with it.

"It was...it was about an inch away from my cheek." Ariadne whispered, struggling to control her breathing "I pretty much stared it in the face."

"You've been shot before." Arthur straightened up, taking the PASIV case out from beneath the table, where he knew it would be. Yes, he was acting cool about it, but he knew all too well how close Ariadne had just come to being lost; and as Yusuf had said before they went under, there was no going back for anyone this time.

"I know." Ariadne got to her feet "You're right."

She sounded apologetic, and Arthur almost regretted treating the event so nonchalantly. By the time he'd readied the PASIV she'd settled herself in one of the chairs around the conference table, and there was a little more colour in her cheeks.

"Are you ready?" Arthur asked, keeping his eyes trained on the PASIV.

"Yeah. Let's go." Ariadne had the same steely determination in her voice that she'd had when she first decided she'd wanted to save Fischer. She was amazing, really.

"I'll see you in a moment, then." Arthur sat down beside her, glancing over as he rolled up his sleeve. Her hair was tousled, the way her lips were set screamed grit and fortitude, her shoulders were set and her head was held high. She was beautiful.

Sitting there, looking at her and thinking about what had just happened, Arthur felt a weight drop in his stomach. Really, if he were to get hurt – or, God forbid, if _she_ were to – would he be happy with things ending the way they were? The way things between them were right there and then? But then again...what could he do to change it? And allowing himself to get distracted, when it was so important that he stayed focussed-

"Arthur?" Ariadne's voice made him blink, looking up "Arthur...are you going to press the button?"

"Oh, yes." He straightened up, leaning over to depress the button.

No, no, there was really nothing he could do at this point. Nothing at all.

* * *

Ariadne barely had time to take note of her surroundings – a cavernous shopping centre – before she was aware of lips being pressed firmly to hers.


	11. Chapter 11

**_Well, look how far we've come guys. I'd like to take this opportunity to give a massive thank you to the readers who've stuck with this story from the very beginning, pretty much this time last year. But that's not to say that the readers I've picked up over the past 12 months don't deserve just as much appreciation._**

**_Guys, this is pretty much the end, I warn you._**

**_This chapter was written during August of last year - I've updated it since then, but the majority of it has stayed the same. This is how I always knew this story would end._**

**_After this, there'll be an Epilogue which will (hopefully) tie everything up nicely. It'll be worth sticking around for, I promise you, although I won't blame you for disliking me after you've read this chapter._**

**_- Hannah_**

* * *

Ariadne barely had time to take note of her surroundings – a cavernous shopping centre – before she was aware of lips being pressed firmly to hers.

The contact was brief and warm and felt wonderful – but it was gone as soon as it had come.

When Ariadne felt steady enough to open her eyes Arthur had moved – he was a few metres away, fixing explosives to one of pillars that was holding up the second floor of the shopping centre.

"What was_ that_?" Ariadne asked, still shell-shocked.

Arthur avoided her gaze, but walked past her to the second of seven pillars, rummaging in the black rucksack he was carrying for the next bundle of C4 "_That _was something I would very much like to revisit _later _once we're awake and completely in the clear. Now keep watch."

The shopping centre appeared deserted, but Ariadne still felt on edge as her eyes scanned the ground floor, the floor that they were stood on. The plan was to place charges in and around the shop directly below the one Ariadne was going to be put under in, like they had with the hotel rooms in the Inception job before the gravity had decided to go haywire.

Feeling something beneath her jacket, Ariadne groped for whatever it was tucked in to the back of her trousers. Her fingers brushed the cool metal of a gun, and she realised for the first time that she had arrived armed. She pulled it free, passing it from hand to hand and going over her brief shooting lessons with Eames in her head. Arthur cleared his throat and she glanced up, although Arthur himself kept his eyes trained on the doorframe of the sportswear shop he was planning on blowing up.

"Ariadne," his tone meant business, mostly, but there boundaries were smudged by slightest hint of tenderness "go over the plan for me, will you please? Just so I know –"

"We go up to the second level of the shopping centre. You put me under. I find Fischer, wait for the kick…and we're done. Finished." She paced as she reeled off her instructions with her gun held in both hands. She finished with a flourish and turned to give him a self-satisfied smile, twirling her weapon around one finger.

A gunshot broke the silence like a shattering window, and for one horrible moment Ariadne thought it was she that had caused the blood to blossom on Arthur's thigh, and that the bullet that had floored him had been dealt by her hand. But then she saw the security guard and before she could really take stock of anything else she was shooting him, once, twice, until he fell and didn't get up. Her hands continued to tremble even after the gun had stopped bucking in her grip and she'd let it drop to the floor.

Arthur hadn't gotten up either.

Ariadne ran to him, stumbling without the aid of the blood that was slicking the floor; for a moment it was all she could see – blood on her hands, on the knees of her trousers, everywhere.

"Oh god." There was an icicle forming in her chest, being born from what had just become a very real, very terrifying possibility. How plain had Yusuf made the fact that there would be no going back for people left behind?

Arthur was trying to use the wall to force himself upright, and he was avoiding Ariadne's gaze as desperately as she was trying to meet his. By the set of his jaw she could tell he was gritting his teeth against the pain and he had a hand pressed to his thigh, just above his knee. Blood had already drenched his trouser leg.

"Elevator. Now." He spat out the words, attempting to lurch forward in to a standing position but slipping further down the wall; Ariadne ran forwards, putting one of his arms around her shoulders and trying to support his weight – she took the rucksack too, hefting it over her arm "We need to put you under as soon as possible."

"What? I'm not leaving you like this!" Ariadne's outraged cry echoed around the glass-walled shop fronts. She tried to look at him – more than anything, she wanted him to look at her – "You could…you might-"

"I'll last till the kick. Now _move_."

They hobbled as fast as they could to the elevator – Arthur did his best not to hiss whenever any weight was put on his leg, but anyone could see it was a struggle. Once they were inside, Ariadne lowered Arthur to the floor and jabbed the button for the next level up. There was a tense silence as they waited for the doors to close – both of them expecting to see projections pile in on top of them.

They slid shut and Ariadne let out a shaky sigh, feeling tears prickle and brim behind her eyes. She all but sank to the floor, adrenaline doing its best to burn away the ice in her veins as she shuffled over to Arthur, sitting so that they were shoulder to shoulder. They waited in tense silence; Arthur pulled a gun from the rucksack and had it aimed at the doors as they parted.

They were greeted by emptiness. The floor was glossy, unmarked, and the shop windows were bright and fake and, ultimately, uninhabited.

It was difficult getting Arthur back on his feet – Ariadne could practically see the strength draining from him – but they hurried in to the shop above the rigged one as quickly as possible. Ariadne set Arthur on the floor behind the counter and went to the front of the shop, pressing the buttons and watching the corrugated shutters clang down to the floor.

When she joined Arthur behind the counter he was pale, and his breathing was laboured. She knelt beside him, guilt crashing over her like a wave.

"I'm so sorry, Arthur. I'm so, _so _sorry." She hid her face against his shoulder, shutting her eyes "I was meant to be watching. I zoned out and now…" tears overflowed, making her voice thick "…and now you're-"

"Stop. Ariadne, stop." He sliced through her speech with his unbreakable calm, "It's not your fault. And I…I'll…"

Ariadne knew he wasn't going to lie and say he'd make it. He was going in to limbo and Ariadne wouldn't be able to save him.

"Don't cry." He thumbed away her tears with the hand that wasn't sticky with blood "I need a tourniquet, if I'm going to have any chance at…are you wearing a belt?"

She was. Arthur took it, securing it tightly around his leg in an ineffective attempt at stopping the blood flow.

"I'll try and last until the kick." He offered her the suggestion and a weak smile which she didn't return; she set her head on his shoulder again "The charges are rigged – they'll give you a kick whether I last long enough to see it or not. But you have a job to do, remember? Fischer-"

"It's not worth it. Saving Fischer and losing you. It's an unfair exchange." Ariadne muttered, her voice quavering.

Arthur didn't have a reply, or didn't want to.

They had a moment – it couldn't have been more than twenty seconds – with their heads together, eyes closed, and then Arthur was reaching for the rucksack, and the silver suitcase inside of it. His movements were as jerky and erratic as his breathing.

"Let me do that." Ariadne murmured; her hands weren't trembling quite as much as his were she fumbled with the cords. He didn't protest, and Ariadne could tell he was frustrated at his weakness, despite how understandable it was.

She settled herself on the floor beside him, toying hesitantly with the IV. She hated the idea of leaving him here, possibly for good, alone. Everything in the past five minutes had happened so fast – it was difficult to comprehend-

"I love you."

Ariadne blinked, looking at him in confusion.

He was watching her intently, his eyes alternating between burning in to hers and flickering across her face. His lips were set in the faintest of smirking half-smiles. Propped up against the counter, blood-stained and slipping further towards the unthinkable – and it was Ariadne's heart that felt closer to stopping in its tracks.

"You're delirious. From blood-loss, probably." She replied slowly, daring to meet his gaze and getting stuck there "But… I love you too, even so."

He laughed – the sound was weak but warm. Ariadne scooted closer to him, needing contact. He grasped her hand, knowing – as ever – precisely what it was she wanted.

"You've got to promise me you won't die." Ariadne realised how childish she sounded, especially in that faint, terrified whisper "That you'll hold on until the kick."

"I'll be fine."

"That's not a promise."

"What difference does it make?" His tone was soft, contemplative instead of decisive for once, and he held her hand to his lips as he spoke "A promise is only words. It's not binding. And we're wasting time."

She nodded, letting go of Arthur's hand – she placed it over the button on the PASIV. Just as she was about to slide the needle in to her wrist, she paused.

"I'll find a way to come back for you."

"Providing I get lost in the first place, that is. I'm starting to think you're wishing it on me."

"You're not taking dying very seriously, you know, compared to how you handle everything else."

"I know. Tell Eames that I do, in fact, possess a sense of humour. But only after losing copious amounts of blood." He leant forward to kiss her forehead.

"You can tell him yourself, once you've woken up." Ariadne muttered, closing her eyes "Now, concentrate on not dying. I won't be long."

* * *

The hospital was white – overbearingly and blindingly white. It took Ariadne a while to realise that she was running already, her boots stomping down the wards, passing rows and rows of empty, pristine beds. The dark camouflage clothes she was wearing made her feel like an ink blot rolling down a piece of paper.

Fischer wasn't anywhere to be seen. Every time Ariadne moved through a room to find it devoid of life her frustration and panic grew, welling up in her chest and threatening to burst with every passing minute. Even kitted out like she was, in combat gear and armed to the teeth, Ariadne felt ridiculously weak.

But at least she was moving now – she had a purpose, she had a reason for running. Finding Fischer was the key to saving Arthur. The sooner Fischer was safe, the sooner Arthur was safe.

"C'mon, c'mon," She slammed open another pair of doors, ran through another ward and down a tightly winding, surgically clean set of stairs "where the hell are you?"

There was another pair of swinging double doors at the bottom of the staircase, and Ariadne burst through them with such force that she almost found it impossible to stop short and not crash in to a dozen projections.

They were emaciated, gormless hospital patients, their skin as white as the walls and floor and gowns they were wearing. They groaned as one.

When the first one lunged at her, Ariadne couldn't help but scream.

Weapons forgotten, she shoved her way through the throng, lashing out with her fists and feet. None of them seemed capable of doing her much harm, but their gaping mouths and fathomless eyes were terrifying enough to make her panic. One wrinkled hand grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her down with surprising force, and Ariadne found herself looking up in to the wasted face of Browning.

It had worked, then. Inception had worked so well that Fischer now saw his godfather as a ghost, haunting him – a horrible memory. Pulling a gun from her belt, she smashed down on Browning's arm with the butt of it until he let go. Ariadne ended up on the floor, crawling through the cloud of zombie-like projections until the doors at the end of the room were in sight.

And they were golden – not white, golden. Fischer had to be behind them.

Hoping that Fischer's newfound perspective of his godfather was only real in the nightmare of limbo, Ariadne sprinted for the doors. They opened at her touch, swinging free and then slamming shut behind her. She wheeled around, quickly sliding a heavy deadbolt across in case the projections got any smart ideas.

There was only one bed in the room, and Fischer was in it. The sheets were tucked in to the sides of the bed, trapping his arms, and he was staring at the ceiling. The blinds on covering the east wall – for it was one huge pane of glass – turned everything in the room to stripes of sunlight and shadow. He was older – an old man. White and wrinkled and perfectly still. How long, in his own time, had he been down here? Years? Decades?

"Robert. Robert Fischer." Ariadne was out of breath, but she hurried to the side of his bed, extricating a frail wrist and checking his pulse. Faint, but there.

He turned his head to her slowly; his brow creased with more than just age "Don't I…know you?"

Ariadne still had a gun in one hand. When she raised it Fischer's eyes widened with the vaguest hint understanding.

"I hope I didn't take too long." Ariadne murmured, pressing the barrel of the gun to Fischer's temple "I _really _hope I didn't take too long."

* * *

Ariadne opened her eyes.

When she sat up, adjusting to the almost non-existent amount of light in the crypt, Yusuf and Eames were trying to talk to a very distressed Fischer; well, anyone waking up in a coffin was bound to be-

Arthur.

Ariadne's stomach twisted so horribly that she let out a small cry, scrambling to her knees and looking to where she'd seen Arthur lie down, praying that he'd moved.

Still. Silent. As lifeless as Fischer had looked when they'd opened the coffin. Drawing or letting out breath seemed impossible – it felt as though her lungs were laced with glass. Getting unsteadily to her feet, she lurched across the space between them before sinking to her knees and putting her face in her hands.

"I thought you were supposed to explain everything to Fischer before you blew his brains-" Eames' jovial tone faltered as he wandered over, his hands coming out of his pockets and hanging loosely by his sides "Ariadne…what…what happ-"

"He got shot." Her voice was constricted by tears as she spoke through her fingers "I was supposed to be watching, Eames. He said he'd last until the kick…_he told me he'd be alright_! I thought…I thought…"

She couldn't talk anymore. She was vaguely aware of Eames hugging her, holding her tight enough to stop her from shaking, and Fischer asking Yusuf why she was sobbing. Everything was blurred by her tears. Everything, apart from the pain in her chest – that was real, sharp and vivid. The unforgiving sting of loss.

After a while – she couldn't tell how long – Eames let go of her, got to his feet and walked away with the heels of his palms pressed to his eyes.

Ariadne crawled forwards, wanting to be near but not wanting to touch him – touching him would make it even more real, to touch him and have him not respond, asleep beneath her fingers and unable to wake to her embrace. So she let her head droop, unable to hold it up any longer, and gave in to her grief.

Tears made dark spots on the lapel of his coat.


	12. Epilogue

**_Hey guys, this here is really the end. Thank you all so much for reading - I can't believe I actually finished this!_**

**_It only took me a year ¬_¬_**

**_Anywho, thank you, and I hope you've enjoyed this._**

* * *

Autumn had descended on Paris somewhat gracefully, and Ariadne was still living in hotels.

Saito had agreed to pay up the rest of the money for the Inception job, seeing as when Fischer had gotten over the shock of coming back from the dead he'd still thought the idea to disassemble his father's empire was his own, and did so with alarming enthusiasm. Yusuf had innocently left out the real events from the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles when filling Fischer in, instead spinning a tale of the most skilled extractor in the business – a living legend – attempting to glean business secrets from him for an unknown syndicate and sending him in to limbo in the process. This "villain" had vanished without a trace; the authorities were at a loss.

Ariadne, however, still received the off phone call from him. Cobb had insisted that they use him as an excuse to clear all of their names - he called it a parting gift, seeing as he was retiring from the extraction business for good. James and Philippa had a father again, but Ariadne doubted he'd ever remarry. Mal was irreplaceable.

Eames also kept in touch regularly. He promised Ariadne that she had a home in London whenever she needed it, though the last thing she'd heard from him was that he was in Mombasa again, since he was finally rich enough to pay off his gambling debts. Although, Ariadne had a feeling that he wouldn't, because he knew he could get away with it.

Yusuf had also gone back to Mombasa, trying to locate the chemicals necessary to keep up his underground "pharmacy". It was true, it seemed, that the sedatives needed for dream sharing were slowly but surely being gotten rid of. In spite of this, Ariadne took the silver suitcase with her wherever she went. As a reminder.

She opened her eyes to soft golden light pouring in from the open window, a gentle breeze making the curtain ripple like a wave. This hotel was the nicest she'd stayed in so far – she still wasn't used to the star treatment that accompanied the ridiculous amount of money she now possessed. Also, Ariadne couldn't bring herself to actually settle down yet. After everything that had happened, finding a house and a legal way of life seemed too mundane, too banal. Eames said that it was a sign, that she obviously suited a life of crime and could make a very successful career out of it if she decided that was what she wanted to do. And honestly? She hadn't dismissed the idea.

The clock on the bedside table was facing away from her, but there was a muffled complaint from beside her when she leant forward to turn it. Two arms wound around her waist, tugging her back playfully. Her back met a bare chest, and a nose nuzzled at the nape of her neck.

"You woke me up." Arthur's sleepy mumble made Ariadne smile, shut her eyes and relax against him.

"Sorry. Go back to sleep."

"I was dreaming."

Ariadne tensed, her eyes opening wide "Really? What of?"

Neither of them dreamt anymore. Not naturally.

"Of when I was in limbo." His lips brushed against her shoulder.

"You never did say," Ariadne murmured "exactly what…I didn't want to ask."

"How long what I out for?" He asked; Ariadne could tell that the sleepiness in his voice was being put on now. It wasn't a subject they spoke about often, and he was paying close attention.

"Around ten minutes." Ariadne didn't bother to hide her embarrassment "I forgot there was a chance you'd find your way out on your own. I was busy trying to get my head around the fact that you were…you know."

She didn't like remembering it. Arthur set his chin on her shoulder, turning his face in to her hair and shutting his eyes.

"For me it was a week." He said softly; Ariadne could tell he was trying hard to keep his tone casual, light "I was back at school."

Ariadne could tell just from the set of his jaw against her back exactly how bad his stay in limbo had been. She twisted in his arms until they were face to face. His eyes were shut, his brow creased and furrowed as he recalled his experience. Ariadne gently traced the lines of his face, smoothing untimely creases.

"We don't have to talk about it now." She murmured, shutting her eyes and resting her forehead against his "We don't have to talk about it ever, if you don't want. We have all the time in the world."

She felt him smile, and groped around beneath the sheets until she found his hands, entwining their fingers together. It was difficult to imagine how much things had changed for her in the past year, and even more difficult to imagine the wide varieties of way things could go in the future.

But for now, she was happy. Right then and there, everything made sense and everything was okay, and she had no intentions of that changing any time soon.

"Shall we just muddle along like this, together, for as long as we can?"

"It's worth a shot."


End file.
